198 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



race ; it is especially abundant in Florida, where nearly every suitable 

 hammock shelters a pair of these noisy owls. Here its favorite haunts 

 are the mixed hammocks of cabbage palmettos and live oaks on the 

 prairies, or the swampy woods in the heavily wooded river bottoms. 



In Mississippi, according to Charles R. Stockard (1905), "this is 

 the common large owl of the State, and almost every wood, large or 

 small, has its Barred Owls. On passing along almost any country 

 road after sunset the hoot of this owl is heard, and where the road 

 leads through the wood it is not at all uncommon to find one or two 

 of them perched on some lower branch of a large tree. Then the 

 owl will incline its body forward and peer at the passer-by in a most 

 amusing fashion, stretching and twisting its neck and bobbing its 

 head up and down in a remarkable way." 



Audubon (1840) says: "In Louisiana it seems to be more abundant 

 than in any other state. It is almost impossible to travel eight or ten 

 miles in any of the retired woods there, without seeing several of them 

 even in broad day; and, at the approach of night, their cries are heard 

 proceeding from every part of the forest around the plantations." 



Nesting. — The favorite nesting sites of the Florida barred owl seem 

 to be in the dense mixed hammocks of cabbage palmettos and live 

 oaks, preferably the low hammocks near extensive marshes, sloughs, 

 streams, or ponds, where they can find abundant food. One nest 

 that I found in such a hammock on the Kissimmee Prairie was in a 

 large cavity in the broken-off top of a dead palmetto, about 18 feet 

 from the ground ; I saw the owl fly off and climbed up to find a single 

 young owl, about one-third grown, on a bed of rotten chips and 

 feathers in a shallow cavity only 2 or 3 inches deep; this was on 

 March 21, 1925. On the same day and in the same general region, 

 I was shown another nest which had been robbed previously, in an 

 open cavity on the top of an oak stub only 6 feet high, in a dense 

 hammock of large live oaks. 



Oscar E. Baynard showed me a nest from which he had taken a 

 set of two eggs, in a very different location; this was in a shallow 

 cavity below a long narrow slit, which seemed to be almost too narrow 

 for the owl to enter, 15 or 20 feet up in a longleaf pine in rather open 

 pine woods. 



Arthur IT. Howell (1932) says that in Florida the eggs are laid "not 

 infrequently in deserted nests of the Crow or Red-shouldered Hawk." 



Dr. William L. Ralph gave Major Bendire (1892) some very full 

 notes on his extensive experience with this owl in Florida; he says: 

 "They nearly always nest in cavities in trunks or large limbs of trees 

 * * *. The cavities they choose for nesting sites are of all sizes 

 and shapes. I have seen some so large that a person could easily 

 stand in one of them, others so small that the birds could with diffi- 

 culty squeeze through the openings, and again others so shallow that 



