Nyctale Acadica (Gnidin.) Bonap. 



NYCTALE ALBIFRONS, Cassin. ) 



■ Iminatarc. 

 NYCTALE KIRTLANDII, Hoy. ) 



ACADIAN OWL ; SAW- WHET OWL ; LITTLE OWL. 

 PLATE XXVII, 



• Also known in its immature stages as the "White-fronted" 

 and '' Kirtland's" Owl ; and to our French people as "/« choiictte." 

 Perhaps it is most commonly known as the " Little Owl," for it 

 is decidedly the smallest species of the family in North America, 



The Acadian Owl — for this is its proper name — resembles 

 somewhat in its general color the .Sparrow Owl. It is, however, 

 a very much smaller bird, differs in the relative lengths of its 

 wings and tail, in its cere and nostrils, and has a black instead of 

 a yellow bill. Nor is it so boreal a species as the Sparrow Owl, 

 having as yet been but seldom met with in the fur countries, and 

 never in any very high degree of latitude. It is given and des- 

 cribed in Fauna Boreali Americana by Rich, and Swains., but only 

 from a single specimen taken on Thompsoa's River, New Cale- 

 donia, to the westward of the Rocky Mountains. Richardson's 

 description of it is largely borrowed from Wilson, as he states it 

 was not met with by "the Expedition." It, however, is met with 

 abundantly throughout Canada from one extremity to the other ; 

 and it probably extends into the southern portions of the fur 

 countries. It is of rather frequent occurrence in the Northern 

 and New England .States, and has been further traced a long way 

 into Mexico ; but this southward extension, as Coues remarks, 

 " appears to be mainly along wooded mountain ranges, the altitude 

 of which compensates, in a faunal sense, for the decrease in lati- 

 tude." From what I can gather from the published local lists of 

 American naturalists, this Owl has but seldom been met with to 

 the southward of Pennsylvania, and it Is not given by Allen or 



