202 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



STRIX OCCIDENTALS OCCIDENTALIS (Xantus) 



CALIFORNIA SPOTTED OWL 



Plate 50 

 HABITS 



The spotted owl was discovered by Xantus, one of the pioneer 

 naturalists of the Pacific coast, on March 6, 1858, and named by 

 him on the basis of a single specimen, collected near Fort Tejon, 

 Calif., in the southern Sierra Nevadas. This specimen remained 

 unique until Major Bendire (1892) found the Arizona form of this 

 species, near Tucson, in 1872. I believe it was not seen again in 

 California until 1882, when Lyman Belding (1890) found it "com- 

 mon at Big Trees, Calaveras Comity, and vicinity in summer, and 

 perhaps in winter." He collected a pair there on June 13, 1882, and 

 says: "It frequents the densest parts of the fir forests." 



The earlier writers knew practically nothing about this species for 

 many years after its discovery; only in recent years have we learned 

 anything of its life history and habits. The range of the species is 

 now known to extend north to southern British Columbia, south to 

 northern Lower California, and east to New Mexico and central 

 Mexico. Throughout this range four races have been described; the 

 1931 Check-List recognizes only three of these, as they appear in this 

 bulletin; Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1915) would recognize only two of 

 these; after a study of a series of 31 specimens, from various parts of 

 the range of the species, he concluded that the northern race should 

 not be separated from the California race. 



The spotted owl is the western representative of the common 

 barred owl of the Eastern States, to which it is closely related and 

 which it resembles in appearance and habits. Its haunts are in the 

 dense coniferous forests and in the more remote and deeply shaded 

 canyons in the mountains. Although generally distributed, it is 

 nowhere common, and, on account of its retiring habits during the 

 day, it is seldom seen; for these reasons it may be commoner than is 

 generally supposed. 



Nesting. — The only nest of the spotted owl that I have seen has 

 had an interesting history. Laurence G. Peyton (1910) has written 

 the early history of it, telling of its discovery by his father and his 

 brother, Sidney, in May 1908, in Fish Creek Canyon, a tributary of 

 Castaic Canyon, in the northeastern part of Los Angeles County, 

 Calif. There were young in the nest at that time. The Peytons 

 took a set of two eggs from this nest on April 1, 1909, and the follow- 

 ing year, on March 30, 1910, they took from the same nest a set of 

 three eggs and secured both of the parent birds. The Peytons did 

 not visit this locality again until 1925, when they took a set of two 



