244 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



with it to his companion, lay it down, and invite her to take it by a 

 series of hops and bows." 



P. T. Coolidge (190G) gives the following account of it: 



About ten or eleven minutes after sunset he left the tree and began singing his 

 love song; he was now full of life and ignored all disturbance. His song was in 

 B flat of the middle octave, a soft trill, seemingly far away, two or three seconds 

 long, and closing with an upward inflection, as if the bird were asking a question, — 

 as doubtless he was. Until the flight of the female, he sang from various perches, 

 now from the branches of the elm, now from some neighboring tree, now from the 

 rim of the cavity in the elm, his eyes fastened upon his quiet mate. His hand- 

 some head was continually bobbing and swinging. Once in a while the male 

 would light beside her; flashing of wings would follow, but darkness made more 

 exact analysis of their movements impossible. Occasionally he would fly out 

 of sight. Returning from one of these trips lie lighted upon the rim of the cavity 

 and touched his bill to that of his mate, but whether to give her some tidbit, or 

 merely a greeting, the darkness kept secret. 



Nesting. — Although the screech owl is fairly common in my home 

 territory, I have never examined many nests, as I have never made 

 any special effort to find them. On only one occasion have I been 

 able to flush one of these owls off the nest by rapping on the tree; 

 had I taken the trouble to climb to and examine every likely looking 

 hollow, I probably would have found many more. As it is, my notes 

 contain the records of only seven nests. Three of these were in natural 

 cavities in old apple trees in orchards; two were in dead pine trees, and 

 one in a dead poplar, in what were apparently old flickers' holes; and 

 the other was 35 feet from the ground, the highest I have ever found, 

 in a natural cavity in a large oak on the edge of some woods. I found 

 my first nest on May 18, 1889, while climbing to an osprey's nest on 

 a dead pine stub in some mixed woods; the owl's nest was in an old 

 flicker's hole below the osprey's nest and about 20 feet from the 

 ground; the owl was sitting on a set of five eggs nearly ready to hatch, 

 and had to be lifted off the eggs. On April 12, 1891, we found a pair 

 of screech owls, a red and a gray bird, nesting in a natural cavity in 

 an apple tree in an old orchard; the opening was only about 5 feet 

 from the ground, so that we could look in and see both owls in the 

 nest apparently sound asleep; under the red owl were five fresh eggs. 

 After removing both owls, to inspect the nest, we returned the gray 

 bird to the hollow, where it promptly settled down; the red one we 

 threw up into the air; it dove straight for the hole, but missed it and 

 fell to the ground, perhaps bewildered by the light and the rude 

 awakening; but it soon recovered its wits and flew off to some nearby 

 woods. On two other occasions I have found both of a pair of owls 

 in the nest together, always one red and one gray. 



Two other nests in old orchards were evidently successive nestings 

 of the same pair of owls. The first was found on May 20, 1933, in a 

 natural cavity in an apple tree, about 10 feet from the ground; it 



