Todd: The Birds of the Isle of Pines. 233 



"Cuban Pygmy Owl" Read, Oologist, XXVII, 1910, 5, and XXVIII, 1911, 10 

 (Nuevas River), 5 (Santa Barbara Mountain), 7 (Canada Mountains, etc.), 

 113 (West McKinley); XXX, 1913, 123 (Nuevas River), 125 (Santa Barbara), 

 130 (I. of Pines). 



Glaucidium siju viUatum Ridgway, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 50,' VI, 1914, 805 

 (Nueva Gerona; orig. descr.; type in coll. U. S. Nat. Mus.). 



Eighteen specimens: Nueva Gerona, Bibijagua, and Los Indios. 



Messrs. Bangs and Zappey could discover no particular difference 

 between specimens of Glaucidmm siju from Cuba and the Isle of Pines 

 respectively, and it remained for Mr. Ridgway to distinguish the form 

 from the latter island. Judging from the series brought back by 

 Mr. Link, which I have had the opportunity of comparing with another 

 series from various parts of Cuba, it is a well-marked geographic race, 

 differing not only in its somewhat larger size, but also in its more 

 grayish, less rufescent coloration, both above and below. There is 

 some variation, it is true, of an apparently individual character, 

 affecting the exact pattern of the markings of the under parts, which 

 in some specimens tend to arrange themselves in bars, and in others 

 partake more of the nature of streaks. Only one of the Cuban speci- 

 mens before me is as gray above as the average Isle of Pines bird, and 

 while half of the Cuban series are in the rufescent phase described by 

 Mr. Ridgway, not a single specimen of the Isle of Pines series shows 

 any approach to that condition of plumage. 



This little owl is common and generally distributed in the Isle of 

 Pines, and is one of the first birds to attract the attention of a new- 

 comer, coming boldly as it does into gardens and the vicinity of 

 houses, and showing little fear of man. It appears to feed mainly on 

 grasshoppers, beetles, and lizards, although from the treatment it 

 receives from small birds it is evident that these also enter to some 

 extent into its bill of fare. Indeed, Mr. Read records a case in which 

 one of these owls even attacked and killed a Cuban Meadowlark — a 

 species larger than itself — only to be in its turn attacked and driven off 

 by a half-dozen of the latter. In habits it is more diurnal than noc- 

 turnal, and its call, described by Mr. Read as a series of shrill, sharp, 

 short whistles, high-pitched at first, and gradually descending the 

 scale, is apt to be heard at any time of the day or night. It has a 

 peculiar habit of nervously twitching its tail, sometimes even holding 

 it erect, wren-fashion. Nothing appears to be on record concerning 

 its nesting in the Isle of Pines, but Gundlach says that the Cuban 



