AMERICAN BARN OWL 147 



molest pigeons that are breeding in adjoining apartments or any 

 species that are not found on the ground around marshes or fields." 



Paul Bonnot (1928) tells another bird-killing story, of a pair of 

 barn owls on an island off the coast of California, as follows: "There 

 was an old cabin on the Island which had fallen partly to ruin. Under 

 a built-in wooden bedstead was the nest of a Barn Owl. * * * 

 The area covered by the bed was three inches deep with feathers, 

 wings and bodies of Beal Leach Petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa beali). 

 These little birds were evidently so easily caught that there were 

 numbers of bodies with only the heads removed, and I collected for 

 study three specimens with hardly a feather misplaced. A good 

 number of the bodies of the petrels were rotting and inhabited by 

 fly larvae." 



It is when the young are being fed in the nest that these owls do 

 their best work in the destruction of rats and mice, for the young 

 require an enormous amount of food. W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: 

 "Tyler, of Fresno, found a nest containing four very small birds and 

 six eggs, for which the following provision had been made: five 

 Pocket Gophers (Thomomys), five Kangaroo Kats (Perodipus), one 

 Pocket Mouse (Perognathus), and two White-footed Mice (Peromys- 

 cus)." And W. L. Finley (1906) says: 



An old owl will capture as much or more food than a dozen cats in a night. 

 The owlets are always hungry; they will eat their own weight in food every night 

 and more if they could get it. A case is on record where a half grown owl was 

 given all the mice it could eat. It swallowed eight in rapid succession. The 

 ninth followed all but the tail which for some time hung out of the bird's mouth. 

 The rapid digestion of the Raptores is shown by the fact that in three hours the 

 little glutton was ready for a second meal and swallowed four additional mice. 

 If this is the performance of a single bird, the effect that a whole nestful of owls 

 would have on the vermin of a community is self-evident. 



Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) writes: "When the sun sinks behind 

 the oak trees and the shadows creep over the valleys, the Barn Owl 

 hurries to the nearest meadow or marsh land on a hunting trip. If 

 it has young at home in the nest, its flight will be swift and noiseless, 

 as it crosses the intervening fields at short intervals, carrying mice, 

 gophers, and ground squirrels. Nine mice form a meal for the brood, 

 and sixteen mice have been carried to the nest in twenty-five minutes, 

 besides three gophers, a squirrel, and a good-sized rat." 



The following items have been recorded in the food of the barn 

 owl: Various mice and rats, nearly every available species, pocket 

 gophers, shrews, bats, moles, muskrats, spotted skunk (Spilogale), and 

 young rabbits; though birds form a small part of the food, a number 

 of species have been found, such as various sparrows, blackbirds, 

 grackles, starling, cowbird, Abert's towhee, bobolink, swallows, 

 warblers, wrens, red-shafted flicker, sora and clapper rails, meadow- 

 lark, green heron, and blue jay; a few insects, such as grasshoppers, 



