82 



THE OOLOGIST. 



owls that I never stopped to frighten 

 them up, but hunted around until I 

 found a wabbly old ladder which had 

 evidently been used in excavating the 

 well, and, with much labor and several 

 "rests." got it over the edge and down 

 to the bottom of the hole. I never 

 realized before that any bird could fly 

 ''straight up," but both of these owls 

 did and they were not at all slow about 

 it either. By some accident neither 

 the ends of the ladder legs nor the 

 numerous pebbles which I knocked 

 down in setting up the ladder, fell on 

 the eggs which one of the birds un- 

 covered by her flight. These were six 

 and fresh, every one of them, and, 

 though I have found some very rare 

 eggs since, I have never felt quite so 

 elated as I did with that find. I man- 

 aged to get home with five whole eggs, 

 the sixth having fallen out of my hat, 

 which, in those halcyon days, was my 

 only collecting basket, and blew all of 

 them by the convenient method of a 

 pin hole in both ends. 



While I have found the eegs of seven 

 out of eight species of owls which are 

 known to nest in Orange county, still I 

 doubt if I have found a dozen sets of 

 tnis species in the past six years. They 

 are plentiful here, too, being by far the 

 most common owl of the foothill region 

 and almost equalling in numbers the 

 persistent little Burrowing Owls of the 

 lowlands. Here in the hills they occupy 

 holes in cliffs almost entirely, passing 

 suitable nesting sites in hollow trees for 

 seemingly less suitable holes in dirt and 

 rock cliffs. I seldom find more than 

 one nest of the Pacific Horned Owl in 

 one canyon, but will frequently find the 

 Barn Owl nesting within a few feet of 

 the home of the big Bubs, while in the 

 dirt banks of the Santa Ana river (as 

 Oliver Davie has already said) and in 

 similar banks of lesser -'wet weather" 

 streams, any number of pairs of Barn- 

 Owls breed occupying holes which are 

 seldom more than a few inches apart. 



In the farming section of this county, 

 they nest in empty barns, pigeon lofts, 

 tank houses, the gable ends of old 

 dwellings, and in fact, almost "any old 

 place" which will afford protection to 

 them and their young from the elements. 

 I know of one pair which laid a set of 

 eggs on the top bale of a pile of hay in 

 a warehouse located in the heart of the 

 busy little town ot Fullerton, where I 

 was then living. 



They are early layers, these Barn 

 Owls, rivaling the big "hoots" in that 

 respect. I remember flushing one from 

 a hole in a seventy foot cliff one cold 

 February morning. I was going over 

 the cliff on an inch manila laid line, 

 after the eggs of a pair of Pacific Horned 

 Owls which I knew were breeding in a 

 hole in the same 3liff. The morning 

 was raw and foggy and the rope felt 

 about like a knife to my cold fingers. 

 The blue gray walls of the fog shut me 

 out from everything save the face of 

 the cliff and I nearly lost my hold on the 

 rope when a ghostly Barn Owl came 

 hurling out of a hole some two feet 

 from my face. Investigation revealed 

 five eggs which is the average number 

 laid by this bird throughout Orange 

 county. During the past year I have 

 noted one hundred and two sets owned 

 by various collectors within a radius of 

 fifteen miles of my home and of these, 

 sixty-two were of five eggs, three sets 

 of nine, ten sets of eight, fifteen sets of 

 seven and the remainder about equally 

 divided between four and six eggs. I 

 have found nests of this bird which con- 

 tained only three eggs, incubation far 

 advanced, so there are probably cer- 

 tain females whose clutches are limited, 

 though I think, from my notes on the 

 Western Red-tail and other raptorial 

 birds that females are not always regu- 

 lar in the size of their settings. To re- 

 turn to my owl-cliff story, the day was 

 the first Sunday in February and the 

 eggs held small embryoes. In the home 

 of Pacific Horned Owl were four per- 



