112 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



Mexico and the highlands of Guatemala : the 

 Dwarf Screech Owl occurs in southern British 

 Columbia, eastern Washington, and Idaho south 

 to San Bernardino Mountains, California. 



" The little Screech Owl is well known 

 throughout the greater part of the United States. 

 With the exception of the Burrowing Owl, it 

 feeds more extensively on insects than any of 

 the other Owls. It is also a diligent mouser, and 

 feeds more or less on crawfish, frogs, toads, 

 scorpions, lizards, and fish. Of 254 stomachs 

 examined, birds were found in about 15 per cent. 

 Among insects, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, 

 and cutworms are most often eaten. As many 

 as fifty grasshoppers have been found in one 

 stomach, eighteen May beetles in another, and 

 thirteen cutworms in a third. During the 

 warmer parts of the year it is exceptional to 



find a stomach not well filled with insect remains. 

 Meadow mice, white-footed mice, and house mice 

 are the mammals most often taken, while chip- 

 munks, wood rats, flying squirrels, and moles 

 are less frequently found. The Screech Owl is 

 fond of fish and catches many, especially in 

 winter, when it watches near the breathing holes 

 on the ice, and seizes the luckless fish which 

 comes to the surface. Most of the birds 

 destroyed by this Owl are killed either in severe 

 winter weather or during the breeding season, 

 when it has hard work to feed its young. As 

 nearly three-fourths of the Owl's food consists 

 of injurious mammals and insects, and only 

 about one-seventh of birds ( a large proportion 

 of which are destructive English Sparrows), 

 there is no question that this little Owl should 

 be carefully protected." (Fisher.) 



GREAT HORNED OWL 

 Bubo virginianus virginianus (Giiiclin) 



A. O. U. Number 375 See Color Plate 57 



Other Names. — Big Hoot Owl ; Cat Owl ; Virginia 

 Owl ; Virginia Horned Owl. 



General Description. — Length. 24 inches; spread of 

 wings. 60 inches. Color above, sooty-brown or dusky, 

 mottled with grayish-white ; below, whitish, barred with 

 dark. Ear-tufts very conspicuous, about 2 inches in 

 length ; toes fully feathered ; 3 or 4 outer primaries 

 notched or cut away on inner webs. 



Color. — Adults : Plumage in general, tawny basally, 

 this partially e.xposed on crown and hindneck, on 

 shoulders, rump, and sides of breast, sometimes on 

 other portions of the under parts ; general color of 

 upper parts, dark sooty-brown or dusky, much broken 

 by coarse transverse mottling of grayish-white, the 

 dusky greatly predominating on crown and hindneck, 

 where forming broad ragged or coarsely and irregular 

 saw-toothed longitudinal stripes which become blended 

 on forehead ; shoulders and some of the middle and 

 greater wing-coverts with inconspicuous irregular spots 

 or blotches of whitish; secondaries more minutely 

 mottled (producing a more grayish effect), and crossed 

 by about five to eight bands of mottled dusky; primary 

 coverts, darker, crossed by three of four bands of 

 blackish ; primaries with ground color more ochraceous 

 or bufify, finely mottled or penciled, and crossed by six 

 to nine transverse series of square spots of dusky; 

 ground color of tail, light tawny, transversely mottled 

 with dusky, more whitish terminally, and crossed by 

 six or seven bands of mottled dusky, these about equal 

 in width to the paler interspaces and bands broken or 

 sometimes even quite obliterated on middle tail-feath- 

 ers where the darker markings have an oblique or. 

 sometimes, even longitudinal tendency: car-tufts with 

 outer webs black, their inner webs mostly ochraceous; 

 " eyebrows," dull whitish, the feathers with blackish 

 shafts; face, dingy ochraceous or dull tawny, passing 



into dull whitish around eyes ; a crescentic mark of 

 black bordering upper eyelid and confluent with black 

 of ear-tufts; facial circle, black, except across throat; 

 a conspicuous, crescentic area of immaculate white 

 across foreneck, the feathers white to extreme base ; 

 rest of under parts with white predominating, but tawny 

 or ochraceous prevalent on sides of breast and show- 

 ing as the base color wherever the feathers are dis- 

 arranged ; sides of chest, breast, and abdomen, sides, 

 and flanks, with numerous sharply defined transverse 

 bars of brownish black, these narrower and less sharply 

 defined on front, the center of upper breast immaculate 

 white; a series of large spots or blotches of black on 

 chest, below the white collar ; under tail-coverts with 

 bars farther apart than on other under parts ; legs and 

 toes, dull tawny to pale buff, usually immaculate or 

 nearly so. more rarely flecked or spotted with dusky; 

 bill, dull slate-black or blackish-slate; iris, briglit lemon- 

 chrome yellow ; bare portion of toes, light brownish- 

 gray or ashy ; claws, horn color, passing into black 

 terminally. Young: Wings and tail as in adults; 

 downy plumage of head, neck, and body, ochraceous 

 or bulT, relieved by detached, rather distant, bars of 

 black. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: Generally, in a deserted 

 Hawk's, Crow's, Eagle's. Osprey's, or Caracara's nest or 

 (in some parts of its range) in a cave, on a ledge, or 

 in a hollow tree ; constructed of twigs, weed stalks, 

 roots, and feathers when in an old nest, or eggs 

 deposited on the bare ground amidst a collection of old 

 bones, skulls, fur, and feathers of quadrupeds and 

 birds. Ei'.Gs: 2 or 3, white. 



Distribution. — Eastern North America from Ontario, 

 Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland south to 

 the Gulf coast and Florida, west to Wisconsin, eastern 

 Minnesota, Iowa, and eastern Texas. 



