332 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Voice. — The hooting call of the dusky horned owl is similar to that 

 of other subspecies. Mailliard (1924) says of owls in Sonoma 

 County, Calif.: "These birds have a much larger vocabulary of notes 

 and combinations of notes than is commonly supposed. The whis- 

 tling note, with rising inflection, that is used in communications 

 between the parents and the young, when the latter are first flying 

 about, is often repeated for hours at a time during the night, or even 

 in the daytime when the young happen to be in a nearby tree and no 

 strangers are in the vicinity." 



Blackwelder (1919) says that "the call of the male is shorter and 

 of lower pitch than that of the female." 



Bowles (1906b) adds the seemingly strange observations, that al- 

 though these owls are common in fall and winter, he has never heard 

 them utter a note. But this is in direct contrast with Dawson (1923) 

 who says: 



As a young man, in Taconia, the writer once lived in a house which immediately 

 adjoined a large wooden church. My chamber window looked upon a flat 

 kitchen roof, through which projected a brick chimney some ten feet away. At 

 three o'clock one morning a horrible nightmare gave way to a still more horrible 

 waking. Murder most foul was being committed on the roof just outside the 

 open window, and the shrieks of the victims (at least seven of them!) were 

 drowned by the imprecations of the attacking party — fire-eating pirates to the 

 number of a dozen. Pandemonium reigned and my bones were liquid with 

 fright — when suddenly the tumult ceased; nor could I imagine through a whole 

 sick day what had been the occasion of the terrifying visitation. But two weeks 

 later the conflict was renewed — at a merciful distance this time. Peering out 

 into the moonlight I beheld one of these Owls perched upon the chimney of the 

 church hard by, gibbering and shrieking like one possessed. Cat-calls, groans, 

 and demoniacal laughter were varied by wails and screeches, as of souls in tor- 

 ment — an occasion most memorable. The previous serenade had evidently been 

 rendered from the kitchen chimney — and I pray never to hear its equal. 



Winter. — Bowles (1917b) says: 



The winter of 1915-16 was the coldest and most severe that I have known during 

 a residence of twenty years in the northwest, ice and snow remaining on the 

 ground for weeks at a time. * * * The first migrants of importance to be 

 noted were the Horned Owls, which began putting in their appearance early in 

 the fall of 1916. * * * At first these migrants were regarded only as what 

 might be usually expected here, but soon they became so numerous as to be a 

 veritable pest. Poultry farms of all kinds were raided without mercy, one example 

 that I shall give in some detail being the gamebird farm belonging to Dr. G. D. 

 Shaver, of Tacoma. The captive wild ducks seemed to have the most attraction, 

 and of fifty-three that the doctor had at the beginning of last fall, only twenty-six 

 are left at the present writing — and the owls are hooting there now. The doctor 

 shot a number of them, but killed more by poisoning the carcasses left uneaten. 

 They usually had the heads eaten off, after which the owls would drag them under 

 some log or roll of wire netting where they were well hidden. It is interesting to 

 note that sometimes the owls would not return to their kill for a period of time 

 ranging from one to five or six days. In two instances two owls were poisoned in 

 one night by eating the same bird, and one owl carried a full-grown Mallard hen 

 twenty feet up into a fir tree where both birds were found dead about a week later, 



