SPEOTYTO HYPOGyEA. 573 



inn;- tlic Sarramcnto Vallo}-, wlieirc none woro seen, iiltlioiijrh tlio spccios 

 uncloubteilly occurs there. In the lower Triickee Vjilley, near I'yraniid 

 Lake; it was abundant in December, and its nocturnal hootino-.s were heard 

 from among the cotton-wood j^roves every nioonliii-lit ni^^lit, while its feath- 

 ers, more than those of any otluT l)inl, adonuMl the arrows of the Indians 

 on the reservation. It was also coniuion near Carson City, and a few were 

 startled one morning- as we rode through a cedar woods near the "City of 

 Kocks," in southern Idaho. One was also seen on the eastern shore of 

 Pyramid Lake in May, it being chased from rock to rock by a male Falcon 

 (Falco coiiimiiiiis ncBviits), who, with his mate, had a nest on the "Pyramid" 

 just off the shore. 



The hooting of this Owl is low and hoarse, resembling the distant bark- 

 ing of a large dog ; its modulation is something like the syllables hooli', liao, 

 hoo, hoo — hooooooo, the latter portion a subdued trembling echo, as it were, 

 of the more distinctly uttered notes. These notes do not differ in the least 

 from those of the eastern birds of this species. 



List of specimens. 



504, eggs (3); Carson River, roar Carson City, Nevada, .\pril 21, ISCS. Nest 

 about 30 feet from tlie ground, in a large cotton- wood tree; evidently an abandoned 

 one of the Buteo sicainsoni. 



Speotyto CUNICULARIA. 



Burrowiiig^ 0%vl. 



y. hypogaa} 

 Strix liypuga'a, BoNAP., Am. Orn., I, 1825, 72, 

 Athene hijpogn'a, BoNAP., Consp., I, 1850,39. — Cassix, in Baird's Birds N. Am., 



185S, 59.— Baird, Cat. N. Am., B., 1859, No. 58.— Coopuu, Orn. Cal, I, I JO. 

 Speotyto ciinicularia var. hypogtvn, Ridgwav, in CouEs' Key, 1872, 207 ; in B. B. 



& R., Hist. N. Am. Birds, III, 1874, 90.— CouES, Cbeck List, 1873, No. 332; 



Birds N.W., 1874, 321.— IIknsuaw, 1875, 409. 

 A thcnc cunicularia, Cassin, in Baird's Birds N. Am., 1S5S, CM (not of Molina, 1782). 



— Baihd, Cat. N. Am. Birds, 1859, No. 59.— Cooper, Orn. Cal., 1, 1870, 437. 



Although the "Ground ()\\\" was found at widely-separated places 



' Races a and /9 are, cunicularia, Mol., of the Pampas of Paraguay, Bneuos Ayrca, 

 etc., and grollaria, Spix, of Peru and western Brazil. Other geograpliieal forms are 

 i,Jtori<iana, Ridgw., of .southwestern Florida, and ;,gua(lcloupvnsi.s, liidgw., of the island 

 of Guadeloupe (West Indies). 



