THE OWLS. 197 



Mr. J. H. Reed, who has made a special study of the barn- 

 owls in Pennsylvania, says that their food consists chiefly of 

 meadow-mice. 



A German ornithologist thirty years ago examined seven 

 hundred and three pellets regurgitated by barn-owls. Of the 

 two thousand five hundred and fifty-one skulls found, one 

 thousand five hundred and seventy-nine belonged to shrews, 

 nine hundred and thirty to mice, sixteen to bats, one to a 

 mole, nineteen to English sparrows, and three to other 

 birds. 



In the Southern States the barn-owl feeds very largely upon 

 the destructive cotton-rat, and in California the main staple 

 of its diet is the pouched gopher, an abundant and vexatious 

 rodent, and the ground-squirrel, a related pest. All accounts 

 agree in showing that it is a rare and exceptional trait for the 

 barn-owl to feed on small birds. 



The Short-eared Owl is said to have the greatest geo- 

 graphical range of any land bird. It is found in all the 

 principal divisions of the globe except Australia, and is com- 

 mon throughout most of North America, going northward to 

 breed in summer and returning southward for the winter. 

 It prefers open to wooded country, and in many regions is 

 the most abundant of the owls. Its food consists principally 

 of field-mice, but moles, shrews, gophers, small rabbits, 

 crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, and rarely small birds are also 

 eaten. Fully ninety per cent, of the stomachs of about fifty 

 specimens examined in the Department of Agriculture con- 

 tained nothing but meadow-mice. In England this species is 

 noted as being one of the chief agencies in subduing the up- 

 risings of field-mice that periodically occur. 



The Barred Owl is a larger bird than either of the pre- 

 ceding species. The typical form is found in eastern North 

 America, while closely related representatives inhabit the 

 West and Southwest. It is generally accused of being a 

 serious enemy to poultry, and in southern regions where 



