KENNICOTT'S SCREECH OWL 269 



very greatly to their credit that nests containing incubated eggs or young are 

 usually well sprinkled with the feathers of smaller birds. However, this might 

 be more or less natural if rodents and other small animals were scarce, but the 

 following incidents seem beyond all comprehension. One friend told me that 

 he heard an outcry among the ducks in his yard one night and, upon going out 

 with a lantern, "found a Screech Owl riding around on the back of one of his big 

 ducks, hanging onto its neck." 



Then he goes on to tell of the experience of his friend, Dr. G. D. 

 Shaver; a pair of these owls — 



came and nested on his place within a short distance of his pens of gamebirds 

 and fancy bantams, and, as the entrance of the nest was only four feet from 

 the ground, the doctor took great pleasure in watching the sitting bird and 

 her family as they grew u,p. One morning during the winter of 1914-1915, 

 which was a very mild season, he was nearly overcome upon visiting his yards 

 to find two dead Golden Pheasants, four dead Ring-necked Pheasants, and one 

 Ring-neck cock so badly hurt that it died a few days later. All were, of course, 

 grown birds at that time of the year. The injuries were nearly all gashes and 

 rips in the head and neck, so the blame was laid to rats although none were 

 ever seen or caught there. * * * On the morning of February 4, 1916, the 

 doctor visited his yards and found a scene of murder similar to that of the pre- 

 vious year. In one pen were four of his prize Buff Cochin Bantams mangled 

 and dead, some being in their house and others out in their yard, while in another 

 pen were two fine cock Golden Pheasants in a similar condition. The wounds 

 were similar in location and character to those made on the birds killed about 

 a year before, but this time part of the head of one of the bantams had been 

 eaten. There was no indication whatever of what had caused the damage, nor 

 of how any predatory creature could have entered, so the doctor put a liberal 

 dose of strychnine into the body of the partly eaten bantam and replaced it in 

 the same spot where he found it. Next morning the seemingly impossible was 

 made a practical certainty, for he found the body of a screech owl with the claws 

 of one foot firmly imbedded in the body of the bantam. 



Elsewhere, Mr. Bowles (1906a) says: "On one occasion at an 

 evening lawn party in the city, one of these owls spent more than 

 half an hour catching what I am positive were angle-worms. He would 

 swoop down onto the lawn and stay for perhaps a minute, returning 

 each time either to one of a small group of maples or to the roof 

 of the house. It was too dark to distinguish what he was catching, 

 but he paid no more attention to the people walking near him than 

 an occasional turn of the head, busying himself with poking about in 

 the short grass with his bill." 



S. F. Rathbun writes to me: "In my collection is a fine specimen 

 of this owl, which I collected after dusk one night in spring. At 

 the time the owl was lurking about the eaves of a barn on a farm. 

 I had an idea that the owl was after some cliff swallows that were 

 nesting under the eaves of the outbuilding. But I did the bird an 

 injustice, I think, for when I skinned it I found its stomach and 

 gullet packed with ants, the large, black pismires sometimes found 

 so common about farm buildings. The owl was so full of the insects 



