A FIRST GLANCE AT THE BIRDS 



European kinsman, so famed in song and story as the inhabitant 

 of ruined places, is a common resident in the valleys of Cali- 

 fornia. Its note is a wild screech, generally uttered as the bird 

 flies past on noiseless wings, a moving shadow against the sky. 

 Although the barn-owls prefer ruins for a home, their aesthetic 

 sense must be satisfied, for the most part, in this new country, 

 with deserted barns. In the Southern California missions, 

 however, they find abiding-places very much to their liking. 



The screech-owl is to me the most attractive member of the 

 order, though why such a sweet-voiced bird should have so 

 forbidding a name I have never been able to discover. It has 

 a variety of notes, all of them agreeable, but its most charac- 

 teristic call is a low, trembling, flute-like whistle. It is a small 

 bird, and in California is always of a motley-gray color. It 

 nests in a hole in a live-oak, and is very abundant in the oak 

 regions of the state. 



The great horned owl is a giant in comparison. He is the 

 typical hooting owl, with his tu hoo\ iu hoo\ sounding in 

 solemn cadence through the night. The woodland is dear to 

 him and he may be found in the depths of the pine forest. 



I will not tarry over the long- and short-eared owls, the 

 former an inhabitant of the underbrush and the latter of the 

 marshes, for both species are generally distributed over the 

 North American continent. There are three other species, 

 however, which are so peculiarly distinctive of the west as to 

 demand our attention. The first of these is the burrowing owl, 

 concerning which such extraordinary tales have been related. 

 We have been gravely told that it dwells in peace in the same 

 burrow with the rattlesnake and the prairie-dog, like the happy 

 family in the menagerie. As a matter of fact, it occupies the 



[17] 



