288 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



entrance. The female parent of this set was caught on the nest and 

 is now in the Thayer collection. 



Since the above was written Herbert W. Brandt has sent me the 

 following notes, in advance of publication, based on his experience 

 with the nesting of this owl in the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz., in 

 1936: "We were fortunate to find two nests of this very rare bird, 

 one on May 8, with three highly incubated eggs, and on the following 

 day a second set of the same number in which incubation had just 

 begun. The first nest was located 22 feet up in an apparent flicker 

 hole in a dead juniper stub growing at an elevation of about 5,900 

 feet, in the bottom of Sunnyside Canyon. The incubating bird left 

 its retreat when Jacot struck the tree sharply, but returned almost 

 at once and was captured on the nest. The three globular white 

 eggs were found, partly buried, at the bottom of the 16-inch cavity. 



"The second nest was found by the same method as the first. In 

 this case the bird had selected a large sycamore tree growing at an 

 altitude of about 6,300 feet, which is here the higher limit of the 

 Upper Sonoran Zone in Bear Canyon. The bird chose an open cavity 

 formed by the breaking out of a main limb, in which to lay its three 

 white eggs. No lining for the nest was employed, the eggs simply 

 being deposited on the accumulated debris. The site was open above, 

 and so formed that the sitting bird could look out without effort and 

 observe that which occurred at a large spring below. This owl was 

 collected also, and at each nest, the incubating bird proved to be a 

 female." 



Eggs.— The eggs of the spotted screech owl are similar to the eggs 

 of other screech owls but are somewhat smaller. The measurements 

 of the 13 eggs in the four sets referred to above average 33 by 27.6 

 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 34 by 27.2, 

 32.3 by 29, 31.9 by 28.7, and 32 by 26 millimeters. 



Plumages. — Specimens of this rare owl are very scarce in collections. 

 I have seen only one specimen in immature plumage. This species 

 is decidedly dichromatic, even in the juvenal plumage. Kidgway 

 (1914) describes both adults and young of both phases quite fully, 

 to which the reader is referred. Of the young in the gray phase, he 

 says: "Upper parts dull grayish brown, indistinctly barred or trans- 

 versely mottled with dusky and dull grayish white, the latter on tips 

 of the feathers; under parts dull white, broadly barred with grayish 

 brown." 



The young in the rufescent phase he describes as "upper parts as 

 in adults but black streaks indistinct (obsolete in some places) ; under 

 parts pale cinnamon-buff deepening into light cinnamon-rufous on 

 chest and throat, the breast, sides, and flanks with narrow and indis- 

 tinct bars of dusky." 



