ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCREECH OWL 273 



or in a Flicker's old nest site. If for any reason the Flicker wishes to retain his 

 previous year's nest site, and Scops is in possession, strife is carried on between 

 them with great vigor, ending as often in favor of one as the other, judging from 

 the broken eggs upon the ground ejected by the victor. The Flicker dares not 

 enter to turn Scops out, but if the premises are vacated for ever so short a time, 

 he enters and holds them against all comers. His formidable bill pointing out 

 at the door is sufficient apology for leaving him in quiet possession. 



Again, when the female is taken off her eggs: "In some instances 

 she will feign dead and lie on her back in your open palm with her 

 eyes shut. Immediately you throw her off, however, she will right 

 herself on wing, and gaining a bough on a neighboring tree will crouch 

 forward, bending her eartufts back and look very spiteful and wicked. 

 At other times when removed from her eggs she will snap her bill, 

 moan slightly, and show fight." 



Mr. Rockwell (1909) says that this screech owl makes frequent 

 use of the abandoned nests of the black-billed magpie "when not 

 occupying a cavity in a tree. It is a rather amusing spectacle to see 

 a round, fluffy little screech owl (dislodged from his cosy corner in 

 a hollow tree) making desperate efforts to reach the nearest magpie 

 nest before the noisy throng of mischief-loving magpies overtakes 

 him, and even more comical to see the plain look of disappointment 

 and incredulity upon the 'countenances' of the pursuers, as the owl 

 reaches the welcome refuge and instantly merges himself into its 

 surroundings; for strange as it may seem magpies will not follow an 

 owl into an abandoned nest, and seem utterly at a loss to understand 

 the prompt disappearance of the object of their pursuit." 



Winter. — That the Rocky Mountain screech owl remains all winter 

 throughout its more northern breeding grounds is indicated by the 

 following account by Major Bendire (1892): 



While stationed at Fort Custer, Montana, during the winter of 1884-'85, 1 took 

 five of these birds, but was unable to find their nests. I discovered their presence 

 quite accidentally. On December 1, 1884, while out hunting Sharp-tailed Grouse 

 in a bend of the Big Horn River, a few miles south of the post, as I was walking 

 by a thick clump of willows I indistinctly noticed a whitish looking object drop- 

 ping on the ground, apparently out of the densest portion of the thicket and on 

 the opposite side from where I was standing at the time, and simultaneously heard 

 several plaintive squeaks from that direction. Carefully skirting around the 

 thicket, which was some 20 yards long and perhaps 5 yards wide, I saw the object 

 of my search savagely engaged in killing a meadow mouse which it had just 

 captured. I promptly shot it. It proved to be a female and excessively fat; in 

 fact all the specimens I secured subsequently showed conclusively that they 

 managed to secure an abundance of food in that Arctic winter climate, and that 

 a portion of this at least seems to be obtained in the daytime. The four other 

 specimens collected by me were all obtained in similar locations. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1928a) has described a new race of the screech 

 owl from eastern California, which he calls Otus asio inyoensis. He 

 says that it is "characterized in comparison with other southwestern 



