216 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



like those of the adult but smaller; the upper parts are fully feathered, 

 but there is still some downy plumage on the throat and under parts. 



Adults apparently have a complete annual molt ending in No- 

 vember and December; an adult female, taken on December 11, had 

 nearly completed the molt of the wings, and the body molt was in 

 progress; two others were molting in these two months. H. S. Swarth 

 (1930) reports a bird taken on July 28 that was "beginning the annual 

 molt. New and old flight feathers appear in the wings." 



Food. — The food of the great gray owl consists mainly of the smaller 

 mammals, such as young rabbits and hares, squirrels, rats, mice, and 

 shrews, with occasionally a few small birds. Mr. Swarth (1930) 

 found in the stomach of one an adult red squirrel, "the animal's head 

 bitten off, but swallowed otherwise entire. The owl was shot at 5 

 p. m., and as digestion had not begun upon the carcass the squirrel 

 evidently had been killed and eaten in broad daylight, revealing 

 diurnal activity on the part of this owl, which I had not suspected 

 of it." 



Dr. A. K. Fisher (1893b) reports that of nine stomachs examined, 

 one contained a small bird, seven mice, and four other mammals. 

 He also says: "Dr. W. H. Dall took no less than thirteen skulls and 

 other remains of red-poll linnets (Acanthis) from the crop of a single 

 bird." 



Francis H. Allen (1904) saw a great gray owl near Dedham, Mass., 

 on February 7, 1904. "It held in its claws a dead and partly eaten 

 crow, which when it was finally dropped by the owl in flight, I found 

 to lack the head and fore part of body and the viscera." 



Behavior. — The great gray owl is apparently a very tame and 

 unsuspicious bird, or a very stupid one. Mr. Allen (1904) says of his 

 bird: 



The owl seemed perfectly fearless of me, but showed nervousness when the 

 crows cawed nearby, and followed with its eyes the flight of the single crows that 

 flew over its tree from time to time. I drove it about from tree to tree with 

 snowballs. It flew low and always took a rather low perch — from ten to twenty 

 feet from the ground, and usually on a large branch of a pine tree, near the trunk, 

 though twice it alighted on the very top of a red cedar. I could get as near as 

 height of its perch permitted and was frequently within twenty feet of it during 

 the hour or two that I spent in its company. 



Dr. Fisher (1893b) says: 



Dr. Dall considers it a stupid bird and states that sometimes it may be caught 

 in the hands. Its great predilection for thick woods, in which it dwells doubtless 

 to the very limit of trees, prevents it from being an inhabitant of the barren 

 grounds or other open country in the North. It is crepuscular or slightly noc- 

 turnal in the southern parts of its range, but in the high North it pursues its prey 

 in the daytime. In the latter region, where the sun never passes below the 

 horizon in summer, it is undoubtedly necessity and not choice that prompts it 

 to be abroad in the daylight. It is stated that the flight is heavy and somewhat 

 labored, and has not the buoyancy noted in that of most of the Owls. 



