ONL AO ty ome 
bi eis | Bowtss, Kennicott’s Screech Owl. 425 
wicked looking a little face as one might wish to see, and there is 
very little doubt that any wandering mouse would have been 
seen and snapped up at the first movement. In this connection 
it is curious that in many instances neither birds of prey nor wild 
animals seem to recognize a human being when they are drawn 
up by this “squeaking” process. I have had a red fox come up 
to within ten feet of me when I was sitting in plain sight without 
making out my identity in the least. It looked me over carefully 
seeming to examine me inch by inch, and then watched the ground 
with ears pricked forward and every sense apparently on the alert. 
The probability is, I believe, that they are expecting some small 
object like a mouse, consequently so large a body as a human 
being passes unnoticed. This is only natural, for we humans are 
liable to much the same error. It is doubtful, for instance, if 
there are many odlogists who, in a careful search among the trees 
for some warbler or creeper nest, have not once or twice passed 
over the nest of some hawk or crow that was in perfectly plain 
sight. It has happened to me more than once, the large nests 
being found afterwards. In both animal, bird, and man the eyes 
are focussed for the smaller object, the larger one being seen but 
not comprehended because unlooked for. 
The variety of food eaten by these owls has formed a most 
interesting study, the results of which it seems justifiable to give 
in considerable detail. A great majority of the stomachs that I 
have examined were from birds taken during the fall and winter 
months, the contents being for the most part the remains of mice 
of different kinds. One interesting exception is that of a male 
given me by Mr. Stanton Warburton, Jr., of Tacoma. This bird 
was taken on January 6, 1917, at which time the thermometer 
was somewhat above freezing with no snow on the ground. The 
stomach contained eleven cut-worms, two centipedes, one mole 
cricket, one good sized beetle, and other insect remains. With 
all this on the credit side of their ledger, these owls are at times 
subject to some most astounding falls from grace. The fact does 
not reflect very greatly to their credit that nests containing in- 
cubated eggs or young are usually well sprinkled with the feathers 
of smaller birds. However, this might be more or less natural if 
rodents and other small animals were scarce, but the following 
