626 



SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — RAPTORES — STRIGES. 



soles yellowish. The ear-opening is extremely large, being 2.00 or more across the longest 



way. Length of a $ 14.50; extent 

 41.00; wing 12.00; tail 6.00; tar- 

 sus to end of middle claw 3.50 ; 

 chord of culmen, cere included, 

 1.12; 9 averaging larger than $. 

 Young birds are much darker col- 

 ored than the adults ; the face quite 

 uniformly blackish, the upper parts 

 dark brown with broad pale buff 

 tips of the feathers, the lower parts 

 dingy grayish-buff, with few if any 

 markings. In any plumage it is 

 rather a plain, plebeian Owl, whose 

 appearance corresponds with its 

 lowly, unpretentious habits. In- 

 habits N. Am. at large, and most 

 ^ other parts of the world ; migratory 

 with us, and sometimes seen in con- 

 siderable flocks, especially in marshy 

 places, which are its favorite hunt- 

 ing-grounds for the small quadru- 

 peds and other animals upon which 

 it preys. It is a great destroyer of 

 shrews and field-mice, deserving on 

 this account to be protected in the 

 interests of agriculture. The breed- 



PiG. 429. -Short-eared Owl, reduced. (Sheppard del. Nichols sc.) j^^^ ^^^^^ jg nearly Coincident with 



tlie general distribution of the species in this country, but most of the birds nest in the northern 

 parts of the U. S. and thence within the Arc- 

 tic Circle, retiring from these high latitudes 

 in winter; the season for eggs ranges from 

 March in the South to July in the North, but 

 is mostly April and May for ordinary lati- 

 tudes. The nest is commonly built on the 

 ground, sometimes in an underground bur- 

 row, consisting of a little hay and feathers ; 

 eggs 4-7, dull white, roundish, about 1.55 

 X 1-25. This Owl, though a member of the 

 most nocturnal division of its family, is one 

 of those frequently abroad in the daytime, 

 and in dull weather may be observed quarter- 

 ing low over the ground in open places, on its 

 broad noiseless pinions, in search of its hum- 

 ble quarry; it is not a woodland bird, like 

 most of its ti'ibe, but lives in rank herbage. 

 STRIX. (Gr. (TTptyl, strigx, Lat. strix, a 

 screech-owl.) Gray Owls. Brown Owls. 

 Wood Owls. Skull and ear-parts more or ^'°- «o. - Short-eared Owi. 



less unsymmetrical, the latter large, furnished with a moderate operculum scarcely reaching 



