76 Bulletin N'o. 2j. 



AN ELUSIVE PAIR OF SCREECH OWLS. 



For four years I have tried to get eggs from a pair of the Screech Owls 

 which nest in the Connecticut River meadows, half-a-mile from here. 

 They have been unusually sensitive over ray intrusions, I think, and 

 have escaped with only slight sacrifice until this year. 



The woods back from the river are full of hollow maple trees, many 

 of which are ideal nesting places for the little Scops. On April 26, 

 1894, the water being about fifteen feet above summer level, I was row- 

 ing through the woods after Crow's nests, and noticed an almost perfect 

 Owl's hole, in the under side of a sloping limb of a soft maple, about ten 

 feet above the water. To test it I bumped the boat rather sharply 

 against the trunk, and instantly, as if I had touched a spring on a jack- 

 in-the-box, a beautiful grey Scops appeared, seated in the mouth of the 

 hole, with ear tufts erect, snapping beak, and eyes like full moons. I, of 

 course, started up the tree, and had climbed hardly half way when "grey 

 ears " left the hole, and was quickly followed by a mate of the red phase. 

 The first flew off out of sight, but the red one, the mother I fancy, 

 perched on a limb about twenty feet away. She (?) showed tio ear tufts. 

 About two feet down in the hole were two blind, white little owlets, two 

 freshly killed "deer mice," and three eggs, one pipped. On holding this 

 to my ear I could plainly hear the chick squeaking inside. 



I had no opportunity to watch the brood, and hoped for better luck 

 next year, but that fall honey bees claimed the hole, and filled it with 

 comb. In 1895, with that hole of course out of the question, I searched 

 every other place I could find, but did not locate the pair until on June 2 

 I found three grey youngsters sitting outside a hole I had overlooked. 

 The mother was near by, and grew very angry when I shook down one 

 of her little ones from a sapling to which he had fluttered. 



Next year, April, 7, 1896, I found a red bird in a very shallow hole in 

 the verticle trunk of a maple, not 1000 feet from the old bee-tree. I 

 hammered on the trunk without flushing her, and after climbing the 

 fifteen feet up from the water to the hole, put my fingers under her and 

 counted the three eggs. I believe she did wink one eye, but she made 

 no attempt to grip my fingers, nor snapped her bill as I have had them 

 do in the roosting holes. Nevertheless, she deserted the eggs, and my 

 brother took them on April 11, cold, and showing only a slight trace of 

 incubation. On the 25th a hole had been dug three inches deep in the 

 rotten wood lining of the nest, probably by squirrels or mice. The next 



