THE CALIFORNIA PYGMY OWL. 
491 
DISCOVERY of an owl west of the Cascade Mountains comes in 
the nature of a revelation. Save in the matter of a thoro inspection of 
the “holey oaks” of Pierce County, no ornithologist need claim the slightest 
credit for what he knows of the owls of Puget Sound; all that he has was 
given to him. 
Now it has been given to some to see Pygmy Owls, but what vaunting 
creature would undertake to bring one in “dead or alive’ on a hundred 
dollar wager? 
Like the wind, his 
royal owlets flit- 
teth where he 
listeth, and you 
cannot tell whence 
heme Omles sor 
whether he will 
come again this 
twelvemonth. 
= 
When my moment 
of privilege came, 
this pocket edition 
of the powers that 
prey stood out 
boldly and un- 
equivocally upon 
the topmost 
splinter of a way- 
side stub in What- 
com County, and 
challenged atten- 
tion. The gnome 
gave his back to 
the road, and now 
and then teetered CALIFORNIA PYGMY OWL. 
his tail, which was 
otherwise set at a jaunty angle, nervously, as tho there were something 
on his mind. But this preoccupation did not deter the Owl from bending 
an occasional sharp glance of scrutiny upon the bird-man. Then all at 
once the bird whirled backward and launched himself, like a bolt from 
a crossbow, at a mouse some sixty feet away across the road. Seizing 
the ‘‘wee, timorous, cowerin’ beastie’ at the very entrance of his hole, the 
bird maintained its grasp upon it with both feet, and supported itself against 
the rodent’s struggles by wings outstretched upon the ground. Not until 
