STRIGIDJ^: OTHER OWLS. 



633 



Medium : size of average asio. Ashy-gray above, etc. New Mexico and Arizona .... cineraceus 

 Large : size over average asio. Markings of all parts very light, the gray pale, with much white, espe- 

 cially on wings and under parts. Rocky Mts. mazwellicE 



Face fringed with filaments. Mexico and Arizona trichopsis 



Toes perfectly naked. Plumicorns short. (Psiloscops.) Larger. Southwestern jiammeola 



Smaller. Idaho idahoensis 



M. a'sio. (Lat. «.sw, a Idud of horned owl. Fig. 435.) Little Horned Owl. Screech 

 Owl. Mottled Owl. Gray Owl. Red Owl. American Dukelet. Of medium 

 size in the genus, i ?: Length 8.00-10.00; extent about 22.00; wing 0.00-7.00, usually be- 

 tween these numbers ; tail 8.00-3.50; 9 larger than ^ .— Gray ornormal phase, inluh $ 9: 

 Upper parts brownish-gray in minutely dappled pattern of lighter and darker shades, every- 

 where finely but irregularly streaked with black or blackish shaft-lines, usually most evident 

 on the crown. A conspicuous oblique scapular bar formed by white or creamy outer webs of 

 several scapulars, each usually touched with black at its end ; a second similar bar on outer 

 webs of several outer wing-coverts. Wing-quills dusky ; outer webs of primaries with several 

 distinct conspicuous white or buff spots; inner webs of 

 primaries and both webs of secondaries with numerous 

 alternating lighter and darker bars ; lining of wings 

 mostly yellowish-white. Tail like secondaries, but the 

 light bars mostly ragged or dissipated in marbling. 

 Facial disc set in a blackish frame nearly all around ; 

 mostly finely mottled, but lores and chin usually whit- 

 ish, immaculate. Taking white as ground color of the 

 under parts, this is coarsely and irregularly blotched and 

 streaked with thick sliaft-lines giving off numberless 

 finer curved or wavy cross-bars ; general aspect patchy ; 

 markings usually wanting on middle of belly. Iris 

 yellow; bill livid or slate-gray, pale horn-color at tip; 

 claws blackish. From this stage the " mottled owl " 

 passes by insensible degrees, through wood-brown, 

 hazel-brown, and tawny into the "red owl." Red or 

 erythrismal phase: Bright rust-red, sometimes even 

 bronzed ; most of the special markings dissipated or 

 ab.sorbed in red, continuous and uniform above, show- 

 ing only traces if any of black shaft-.'^tripes ; below, 

 black stripes and blotches usually preserved, and red 

 also mixed with much white. The dark rim of the disc, 

 and white scapular stripes, are u.sually preserved. The 

 two phases are distinct from the first feathering, which, 

 in the normal ))hase, is almost everywhere closely and regularly barred or waved crosswise with 

 dark gray and pale gray or whitish. Nestlings are covered with white down. Eastern U. S. 

 and Canada (except the range of M. a. floridamis), W. to the Great Plains, on confines of its 

 range sliaiiing into the several varieties noted beyond ; resident, and on the whole the most 

 abundant Owl, breeding about buildings as well as in hfdlow trees or stumps, and feedinir on 

 small tiuadrupeds, as mice and shrews, insects and less frequently small birds and reptiles ; 

 nt'st a slight accuuuilation of rubbish in tlie hollow .selected for a residence, which is often a 

 Woodpecker's hole; eggs ordinarily 5 or (J, but fmiu 4 to 7, 8, or 9, white, subspherical, 1.30 

 to 1.40 X 1-15 to 1.20, laid from the latter half of March to early in May, according to lati- 

 tude. This interesting little Owl, of the quaint and curious cries, so persistent in utterini^ its 

 doleful ditty, is the best known and most familiar of its uncanny tribe; it belongs to the group 



Fig. Voi^. — Screech Owl, Gray Plumage. 



