156 BULLETIN 170, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



contained one of their nests, rudely made of coarse sticks, while some supported 

 two or three. The birds were roosting in the low branches in the darkest portions 

 of the clump, and they were generally so well concealed that I saw them only as 

 they dashed hurriedly out when I was close upon their retreats. 



Major Bendire (1892) writes: 



The Long-cared Owl rarely constructs a nest of its own; usually the last year's 

 nest of a Crow is slightly repaired by being built up on the sides and lined with a 

 little dry grass, a few dead leaves, and feathers; some of the latter may nearly 

 always be seen hanging on the outside of the nest. Fully three-fourths of the 

 nests found by me occupied by these Owls were those of the Crow. Only a very 

 few were evidently built by the birds themselves. One such found near Camp 

 Harney, Oregon, on April 4, 1877, was placed in a thick bush of dry willows about 

 10 feet from the ground. This was tolerably well built, composed externally of 

 small sticks and sprigs of willows and aspens. Some of the latter had been peeled 

 by beavers, which were common in the vicinity, and they were still green and 

 pliable; these fresh looking sticks drew my attention to the nest, which I mistook 

 for that of a Raven or Crow. The inner cup was about 5 inches deep and lined 

 with dry grasses and feathers; it contained four fresh eggs. * * * On another 

 occasion I found a pair of Long-eared owls occupying a cavity in an old cotton- 

 wood stump not over 12 feet high; a Red-shafted Flicker had that season 

 excavated a burrow directly over that of the Owl's and the two entrance 

 holes * * * were not more than 2 feet apart. The birds seemed to live in 

 perfect harmony with each other. 



Audubon (1840) also found a nest that was evidently made by the 

 owls, "near the Juniata River in Pennsylvania, where it was composed 

 of green twigs with the leaflets adhering, and lined with fresh grass 

 and sheep wool, but without feathers." 



Old nests of the black-billed magpie are often appropriated. A. D. 

 DuBois, in his notes, thus describes such a nest that he found in 

 Montana: "While exploring an almost impenetrable thicket, border- 

 ing the Teton River, I came upon an old magpie's nest, which would 

 not have arrested my attention except for a number of downy feathers 

 clinging to the outside of it. It was in a scrubby willow tree, about 

 15 feet from the ground. The field glass revealed no sign of life within, 

 but when I made my way to the tree and gave it a rap with a stick an 

 owl flew out from the farther side of the nest. She alighted on a 

 branch a few feet away to take a brief look at me and then hastily 

 disappeared in the brush. I climbed to the nest and could clearly 

 see, through the openings in the old flattened canopy of magpie archi- 

 tecture, that it contained five white eggs. The old nest cup proper, 

 constructed of mud, was for the most part intact, although somewhat 

 dilapidated. It was rather flat and shallow. In it were a few coarse 

 twigs and some gray feathers of the owl, forming a flat saucer-shaped 

 bed upon which the eggs rested. The canopy, or roof, though not very 

 thick, was sufficiently intact to enclose the nest completely, except for 

 a large hole in one side, which the owl was using as an entrance, and 

 a smaller hole opposite." 



