234 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Illustrating the patience of this owl, as a mouser, Lewis O. Shelley 

 has sent me the following note: "One winter, near zero weather with 

 snow on the ground, a saw-whet owl was noticed as it perched on a 

 sapling maple close to a back stoop at a dwelling flanked on the back 

 and sides by woodland. The woman of the house occasionally placed 

 pies outside to cool quickly, and mice as surely found the pastry. 

 Perhaps the owl had seen a mouse at such a time, and when on a 

 succeeding day a pie was put out, and the lady of the house was 

 where she could watch it, she saw the owl perched again in the maple 

 tree. Then a mouse crept forth and the owl's patience was rewarded, 

 when it glided down and made its catch, making off into the woods 

 with the mouse in its claws." 



Major Bendire (1877) once had one in captivity, of which he says: 

 "This I fed at first on live mice, the only thing it would touch, but 

 after a while it ate the carcasses of birds, and would eat twice its own 

 weight in a day. If several whole birds were thrown into its cage it 

 would eat the heads of all of them first, and hide the bodies in the 

 corners of the cage, covering them up with loose feathers. Once I 

 put a red winged blackbird, perfectly unharmed, in the cage with it, 

 which it at once killed. Flying to its perch it grasped it with two of 

 its toes in front and two in rear, and always sat in this manner. I 

 kept it supplied with fresh water, but I think it never used any." 



Although this owl is mainly useful and beneficial in its feeding 

 habits, it is a powerful and savage little fellow at times and capable 

 of killing birds and animals larger than itself; that it can be very 

 destructive is well illustrated by the following story, related by J. A. 

 Farley (1924): 



Mr. E. Cutting of Lyme, New Hampshire, once told me that in the fall a few 

 years ago he found that something was killing his Pigeons. He thought it might 

 be a mink or a weasel or some other animal. He had 25 Pigeons that roosted 

 nightly on sticks put up for perches in his barn. The dove-hole was close by in 

 the barn door. Seven Pigeons lay dead one morning on the hay beneath their 

 perches. The birds' heads were gone, some feathers were lying about and there 

 was some blood on their bodies; otherwise there was no sign. The following 

 evening Mr. Cutting went by stealth into his barn. By the light of his lantern 

 he found two more headless Pigeons on the hay. Looking up he saw the "killer" 

 perched on a beam. He despatched it with a long stick. It was a Saw-whet 

 Owl. 



Rockwell and Blickensderfer (1921) quote George L. Nicholas as 

 follows: "While hunting in a pine wood near this town [Summit, New 

 Jersey!, I obtained an Acadian [saw-whetl owl. Upon dissecting it I 

 found that its stomach contained a flying squirrel, winch had been 

 swallowed whole and but slightly digested." 



Behavior. — The one characteristic most prominent in the behavior 

 of the saw- whet owl is its tameness, stupidity, or fearlessness; it can 

 be approached most easily, even within a few feet, and has often even 



