thing like the barking of young puppies, is followed by a variety of hollow gut- 

 tural sounds each eight or ten times repeated, more like those proceeding from 

 the throat of a quadruped than that of a bird ; these in turn are succeeded by 

 others not unlike the mewing of a cat, but considerably hoarser. All these are 

 uttered with great vehemence, in such different keys, and with such peculiar modu- 

 lations of voice, as sometimes to seem far away and again as if just beside you, 

 now on this hand, now on that; so that from these maneuvers of ventriloquism 

 you are utterly at a loss to ascertain from what particular quarter they proceed. 

 About the middle of May the Cha.ts begin to build. The nest is usually fixed 

 in the upper part of a bramble bush, in an almost impenetrable thicket ; some- 

 times in a thick vine or small cedar; sometimes not more than four or five feet 

 from the ground. It is composed outwardly of dry leaves ; within these are laid 

 thin strips of bark of grapevines, and the inside is lined with fibrous roots of 

 plants and fine dry grass. The females lay four eggs, slightly flesh colored and 

 speckled all over with spots of brown or dull red. The young are hatched in 

 twelve days, and make their first excursion from the nest about the second week 

 in June. 



While the female of the Chat is sitting, the cries of the male are still louder 

 and more incessant. 



Barn Owl (AIuco pratincola) 



Length, about 17 inches. Facial disk not circular as in other owls; plumage 

 above, pale yellow ; beneath, varying from silky white to pale bright tawny. 



Range : Resident in Mexico, in the southern United States, and north to 

 New York, Ohio, Nebraska, and California. 



Habits and economic status: The barn owl, often called monkey-faced owl, 

 is one of the most beneficial of the birds of prey, since it feeds almost exclusively 

 on small mammals that injure farm produce, nursery, and orchard stock. It hunts 

 principally in the open and consequently secures such mammals as pocket gophers, 

 field mice, common rats, house n:icc, harvest mice, kangaroo rats, and cotton rats. 

 It occasionally captures a few "hirds and insects. At least a half bushel of the 

 remains of pocket gophers have been found in the nesting cavity of a pair of 

 these l>irds. Remembering that a go]iher has been known in a short time to 

 girdle seven apricot trees' worth SKX) it is hard to overestimate the value of the 

 service of a pair of barn owls. 1.247 p'-llels of the barn owl collected from the 

 Smithsonian towers contained 3.100 skulls, of which 3.004, or 97 per cent, were 

 of mammals ; 92, or 3 per cent, of birds ; and 4 were of frogs. The bulk consi.sted 

 of 1,^)87 field mice, 65^) house mice, and 210 common rats. The birds eaten were 

 mainly sparrows and blackbirds. This \aluable owl sboidd bo rigidlv protected 

 thrf)ngli(»ut its ciilire range. 



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