224 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



never made that they are blind. The spruce partridge, and even the 

 ruffed grouse in wild regions, act in this way, and crossbills and pine 

 grosbeaks are sometimes surprisingly tame and can be captured by 

 slip nooses on short sticks. The "tameness" in the case of these birds is 

 certainly not due to blindness. Forbush (1927) says of this owl: 

 "Even if it sees only indifferently well by day, it is the exception 

 among owls, as most of them see remarkably well then." 



An experience that I had (1925) with a Richardson's owl at Grand 

 Manan, not many miles from the nesting hole of this bird found by 

 Robie W. Tufts the year before, leads me to think that, as in the case 

 of the spruce partridge, its eyesight is sufficiently keen by daylight, 

 but that unfamiliarity with man accounts for its apparent tameness. 

 If the owl I observed was the same one that was robbed of its eggs by 

 Mr. Tufts, it probably learned a lesson about man and was therefore 

 wary of me. With the sun shining brightly, the owl appeared to 

 watch me closely from the top of a telegraph pole about 30 yards 

 away, turning its head from time to time, as if to look directly at me, 

 while I moved about and inspected it through my binoculars for ten 

 minutes. It was then startled by a horse and wagon and flew to a 

 spruce tree, but it again flew from there and disappeared in the woods 

 at my approach before I had come within 30 yards. I feel sure that it 

 saw me, although, in the case of the horse and wagon, it may have been 

 the noise that frightened it. 



On another occasion at Ipswich in winter, Prof. F. A. Saunders and 

 I flushed a Richardson's owl at mid-day in a grove of pitch pines in the 

 dunes, while we were still 20 yards or more away. There are, how- 

 ever, numerous records of the taking of this bird by the hand , or in a 

 hand net, in the daytime, and also of its being killed by means of a 

 short stick. Owing to the fact that it is not often flushed and is so 

 protectively colored, it doubtless often escapes unseen and may, 

 therefore, be more common than is usually supposed. 



Mrs. Helen G. Whittle (1923) reports the interesting behavior of a 

 Richardson's owl that visited her feeding shelf at a window on a snowy 

 winter day in Cohasset, Mass. On the snow below the shelf were 

 20 or more juncos and various sparrows at which the owl peered, 

 "swooped down upon them (not greatly to their alarm, it seemed to us), 

 failed to capture any, and returned to the shelf. * * * He seemed 

 in some degree aware of our light [in the room] and of our excited 

 interest, but apparently could not really see my husband's face inside 

 the glass, within five inches of his own!" After this he flew into some 

 pine trees. In a recent letter to me Mr. Whittle writes: "To this may 

 be added, emphatically, the surprising lack of fear among the juncos 

 and sparrows below the shelf, and not over 5 feet away, when the owl 

 alighted on the shelf from which it inspected the birds below. The 

 consternation to be expected among the birds under the circumstances 



