312 



stkk;id;e. 



DELICATK OWL, NESTLINl; 



found was during September, and was situated in a dead I'.iey (iuni. The birds gamed access 

 to the inside of the tree through a small crack where one could hardly get a hand through. 

 The nesting-places contained two young ones, which were testing on a mass of ejected pellets, 

 dead birds, etc., one examined being a half devoured Quail. A strong and disagreeable odour 

 was emitted by the nesting place, and the blow-Hies must have been a torment to the young ones. 

 The latter were very wild, and showed light at once. These birds prey upon mice about my 

 buildings in the winter months, and their screech disturbed my neighbour so much that I had 

 difficulty in persuading him not to shoot the birds, hoping to <^et their eggs, but as the breeding 



time came round, about September, they disapeared to 

 more secluded spots. They are hack again now 

 (May).- 



Writing undei date 2'ith September, igoi, Mr. 

 Savidge remarks :—" With the accompanying photo- 

 graph I send you a nestling Delicate Owl. I was 

 disappointed when I saw young in the nesting place, 

 for I hoped to get a set of eggs. The bird does not 

 hoot, as has been stated, but makes a noise like an 

 opossum, without the breal; that is in the latter. This 

 bird must have laitl its eggs about the end of August." 

 Mr. I lenry L. White, of Belltrees, Scone, New South 

 \\ ales, sends me the following notes : — " I have fre- 

 quently noted Stn'x dclicatula here, and have at times 

 flushed it from the dense Casucirinn trees growing along 

 the streams. A line bird was secured alive in a 

 boundary rider's house, into which it found its way via the chimney. Occasionally the Delicate 

 Owl may be seen in the woolshed here." 



Mr. Thos. P. .Austin, of Cobborah Station, Cobbora, New South Wales, writes : — " Several 

 times within the last three years 1 have found dead Delicate Owls ( Strix dclicatula) on top of 

 the hay in my hayshed, and they e\ idently come there at night to catch mice. One of these 

 dead birds was not more than a few months old, so I knew they must breed somewhere in the 

 district, but had never seen a living bird here until about the end of 1909, when, ralibit shooting 

 late one evening, I flushed one from a very large Red Gum-tree on the bank of the Talbragar 

 River. ( )n the 29th September, 1910, I took a rope ladder to examine the tree, and while getting 

 the ladder up the tree flushed the Owl, and found three fresh eggs in a very large hollow. The 

 eggs I had to scoop, as they were four feet from the entrance. In the same tree there was also 

 the nesting hollow of Niiiox cumiivcui with three young, .-!;/(;$ siipcrciliosa with eight eggs, Dacclo 

 gigas with three eggs, and numerous nests of Platyccvcus. cximiiis and Pscphotus luematonotus. 

 In the same hollow with the Black Duck's eggs. I took two young Cacatua galcvita a 

 few years ago. I ha\e also kmown liiiiysloiiiiis aiistralis to breed in this tree. Upon the same 

 branch as the nesting hollow of Stnx dclicatu/a, only a few feet further out, a swarm of bees had 

 their hive, and now a young swarm have taken up their abode in the nesting hollow used by 

 Strix dclicatula, but the Owl still lives in the same tree in another hollow." 



The late i\Ir. K. H. Bennett wrote in 18S6 from Mossgiel, Western New South Wales: — 

 "Strix dclicatula was very numerous here at the time of the rat invasion, in the early days of 

 settlement, and disappeared after the rats left the district. During that time I found it breeding 

 on two occasions, the eggs, si.x in number, rather rounded in form and dull white, were in each 

 instance simply deposited on the soft decayed wood in the hollow trunks of trees, in a similar 

 manner to those of Parrakeets. I have occasionally seen individuals since, but they did not 

 remain to breed, and like all the Owl family can only be regarded as occasional visitors." 



