274 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



races by large size and extremely pale coloration; ground-color of 

 dorsum near drab-gray; streaking of both upper and lower surfaces 

 narrow, sharply outlined, and black; white about head, on lower sur- 

 face of body, and on feathering of legs, clear and extensive." He 

 says that it most closely resembles maxwelliae, but differing from it 

 "in still paler, more ashy and less brownish tone of general coloration; 

 dark vermiculation beneath and on legs more sootily black; the white 

 spots on the outer webs of primaries in closed wing much the smaller 

 in inyoensis, and the intervening correspondingly broader dark bars 

 decidedly grayer in color." 



OTUS ASIO CINERACEUS (Ridgway) 

 MEXICAN SCREECH OWL 



HABITS 



The Mexican screech owl occupies the Upper Austral Zone in cen- 

 tral Arizona, southern New Mexico, central western Texas, and parts 

 of Lower California and Sonora. Further remarks on the local dis- 

 tribution of this race, in relation to the closely related gilmani, will be 

 found under that race. 



Kidgway (1914), under the common name Arizona screech owl, 

 describes this race as "similar to 0. a. aikeni, but more delicately 

 penciled, both above and below, the pencilings on under parts aver- 

 aging denser or more numerous." 



Nesting. — Major Bendire (1892) says: 



In the oak regions of southern Arizona they nest in the natural cavities of these 

 trees, most of which are hollow. On March 26, 1872, I found one of their nests 

 in an old woodpecker's hole in a willow stump not more than 7 inches in diameter 

 and about 6 feet from the ground. The cavity was slightly over 2 feet deep, and 

 the four eggs it contained, which had been incubated for a few days, were lying 

 on bits of rotten wood and a few dead leaves, not sufficient to call a nest. The 

 female was at home and had to be taken out forcibly, protesting and uttering a 

 hissing sound, and, after being turned loose, snapping her mandibles rapidly 

 together from her perch on a small walnut tree, into which she had flown. I was 

 in hopes she might continue to use the same site again, but was disappointed in 

 this. 



On April 16, 1922, in a row of immense cottonwoods along an irri- 

 gation ditch, near Fairbank, Ariz., we found one of these owls asleep 

 in a lofty hole in one of these trees. Again, on May 17, in the same 

 region, we found another in a cavity in a low willow. But there were 

 no eggs in either hole. 



Eggs. — Major Bendire (1892) says: "The number of eggs laid is 

 usually three or four, rarely five. They are similar in shape and color 

 to those of the rest of this genus. Now and then a set is found which 

 is so badly stained by the extrement of fleas inhabiting their burrows 

 in large numbers that the eggs, judging by their color, might be taken 

 for those of the Sparrow Hawk." 



