OWLS 



119 



lizards, and grasshoppers all fall hcncatli their 

 attacks. They are known to catch birds — even 

 such large species as the Nigiithawk succumb to 

 their ferocity. 



On the palmetto prairies of the south Florida 

 mainland, as well as on some of the islands along 

 the coast, is found the Florida Burrowing Owl 

 (Sf'cotyto cunicularhi floritlaiia ) which is very 

 closely related to the western bird of the same 

 name. In The Auk for January, 1892, S. N. 

 Rhoads tells of his experience of visiting a nest- 

 ing colony that was three miles long and con- 

 tained several hundred j^airs of " Ground Owls," 

 as they are locally called. Here in the loose sand 

 it was easy for the birds to make their own 

 nesting burrows. These ran along so close under 

 the grass roots that grazing cattle often broke 



holes through from the top. The burrows were 

 from four to seven feet in length with an en- 

 larged oven-shaped ])0cket at the end. The 

 nesting material consisted of pieces of dry 

 cow-droppings and fragments of turf among 

 which the eggs were mixed more or less indis- 

 criminately. 



The old birds it seemed were kept very 

 busy gathering food for their offspring. Of 

 the appetite of the young he writes: "The 

 voracity of the young is ])henomenal. I kept 

 several, of different ages, in a tin box for several 

 days. Besides eating everything, fresh or putrid, 

 that was offered, they attacked and devoured 

 each other. I was forced to kill the three re- 

 maining cannibals to preserve them." 



T. GiLiiERT Pearson. 



PYGMY OWL 



Glaucidium gnoma gnoma IVaglcr 



A. O. U. Number 379 



Other Name. — Gnome Owl. 



General Description. — Length, 6^ inches. Dichro- 

 matic ; in grayisli-brown phase, upper parts grayish- 

 brown spotted with light and under parts white streaked 

 with dark; in rufescent phase, upper parts much 

 browner with the spots cinnamon. No ear-tufts; tips 

 of outer primaries narrow. 



Color. — Gr-wisii-brown Phase: General color of 

 upper parts, grayish brown, the crown and hindneck 

 with numerous irregular but mostly roundish small 

 spots of pale dull buff; across lower hindneck an inter- 

 rupted collar of white and immediately below this an- 

 other of black followed by large, mostly concealed, 

 spots of pale tawny ; back, shoulders, wing-coverts, 

 rump, and upper tail-coverts with minute irregular 

 (often V-shaped) spots or bars of pale huffy brownish, 

 buflFy, or whitish, these markings mostly concealed ; 

 outer shoulder-feathers with large spots of huffy or 

 huffy-white on both webs, the spots largest, however, 

 on outer webs ; outermost middle and greater wing- 

 coverts with larger spots of white; primary coverts, 

 plain dark brown, darker terminally, their inner webs, 

 however, spotted with white ; wings, dusky grayish 

 brown, their outer webs with transverse spots or broad 

 bars of paler grayish-brown, these becoming white or 

 partly white on outer secondaries and ends of longer 

 primaries ; tail, dark to dusky grayish-brown, crossed 

 by 6 or 7 interrupted bars of white, these much broader 



on inner webs, and on both webs falling far short of 

 the shaft; "eyebrows" and lores, dull white, the latter 

 with conspicuous black bristly shafts; chin and cheeks, 

 immaculate white; a band of brown across throat; 

 foreneck and middle line of breast and abdomen, 

 immaculate white; sides of chest, brown tinged with 

 tawny, transversely spotted with pale cinnamon-buflF, 

 the sides more grayish, irregularly spotted with white; 

 rest of under parts, white broadly streaked with dark 

 brown, the streaks becoming black or brownish black 

 on fianks and next to the immaculate white center area; 

 legs, soiled dull white mottled with grayish-brown; 

 bill, pale grayish-yellow, darker basally ; iris, lemon 

 yellow; toes, light yellowish-brown. Rufescent Ph.\se: 

 Similar in pattern of coloration to the grayish-brown 

 phase, but general color of upper parts much browner 

 with the spotting (especially that on crown and hind- 

 neck) cinnamon or cinnamon-bufF. and with throat- 

 band and sides of breast cinnamon-brown. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: In hollow stumps, or 

 trees from 8 to 75 feet from the ground, usually in 

 deserted Woodpecker holes, generally in coniferous 

 forests, but the nest in deciduous trees. Eggs : 3 or 4, 

 white or very pale cream. 



Distribution. — Western North America from Caribou 

 district, interior of British Columbia, south in moun- 

 tains to Guatemala and cast to eastern Montana, Colo- 

 rado, and New Mexico. 



Dr. Coues gave the Pygmy Owl an excellent 

 character, saying that " it is a very straight- 

 forward, ingenuous, unsuspicious little bird, 

 meddling with no affairs but its own, and inno- 



cent enough to expect like treatment from others, 

 expectations, however, not often realized " — 

 either in birdland or elsewhere, he might have 

 added. 



