BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 215 



with pale brownish; quills brown with transverse bands, nearly- 

 white on the outer webs; tail, pale ashy-brown, with about ten 

 transverse narrow bands of pale cinereous; under wing coverts 

 white, the larger tipped with black; bill and claws light horn 

 color; irides yellow. 



Length, 9.50 to 10; wing, 7; tail, 8.50. 



Habitat, eastern North America. 



BUBO VIRUINIANUS (Gemelin). (375.) 



GREAT HORNED OWL. 



A lad about ten years of age recently visited the Twin Cities, 

 who had never seen a good many things, among which this 

 famous Night King of the forest. He had read of the species, 

 but having never seen a forest, or even a forest tree in his 

 life, until on his way here it was not strange that he had 

 never looked upon, or heard the notes of this wonderful bird. 

 Let us imagine his surprise when he was halfway across a 

 narrow arm of a larch swamp spanned by turnpike, walking 

 deliberately beside a friend, and heard in the darkness the 

 dismal, weird, hoo-o, hoo-o, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, of the Great 

 Horned Owl. The half -breathed half -uttered, "Gosh!" be- 

 comes eloquent in our imaginations, without the touch of any- 

 thing bordering on the profane. When I was a lad of the same 

 age, and accustomed to hearing those notes, I was spending 

 the night with a family of friends, in a densely wooded portion 

 of the country, at a time when the moon was ' full. ' Stepping 

 out of the door into the flood of the moonlight just before 

 retiring, I heard a characteristic hoot, a long distance away, 

 and boylike, hooted back to it. In an instant a response to me 

 came from a much nearer point, but in another direction, to 

 which I replied as promptly, and again received an answer; 

 and this reciprocal hooting for less than a quarter of an hour, 

 brought seven different owls of the kind simultaneously 

 within visible distance of where I stood, in the shadow of a 

 projecting limb of a lofty elm. While quietly contemplating 

 my success in deceiving and alluring such an unprecedented 

 number of owls, a boom from one of them that had, unheard, 

 perched immediately over my head, burst upon me so suddenly 

 that my courage forsook me, and I sprang incontinently from 

 my hiding place into the clear moonlight, where a glance up- 

 ward embraced the monstrous bird with every feather erect, 

 and eyes expanded, glaring down upon me, instantly following 

 which he spread his broad wings and sailed away into depths 



16z 



