IOO Palmer, The Florida Ground Owl. [April 



where the conditions are apparently similar, few or none can be 

 found. 



Of the bird but little concerning its habits has been written ; 

 few naturalists having had the opportunity of seeing it alive, and 

 then only for a very limited time. Mr. S. N. Rhoads, 1 Mr. 

 W. E. D. Scott, 2 and Mr. Walter Hoxie 3 are the only writers who 

 have recorded any extended experience with the species. Some 

 additional information is also given by Major Bendire. 4 



During March of last year, in company with Mr. Robert Ridg- 

 way and Mr. E. J. Brown, I collected a series of these owls from 

 about the central part of the western bank of Lake Kissimmee 

 and on both sides of the Kissimmee River in Polk and Osceola 

 Counties to near Fort Kissimmee in De Soto County. No eggs 

 were found, our last date for collecting the birds — March 20 — - 

 showing several burrows nearly finished. 



Upon comparing the papers of Messrs. Rhoads and Scott vari- 

 ous contradictions and agreements regarding their observations of 

 the local habitats and habits of these birds will be noticed. They 

 appear each to have found the birds in quite different situations, 

 hence the differences between their observations. My own journey 

 took me over both kinds of ground mentioned by these writers, 

 and I am thus enabled to agree with both as to the correctness 

 of their statements and to present something additional. Both 

 writers, Mr. Rhoads especially, have given very interesting and 

 perfectly correct descriptions of the peculiar topography of the 

 region inhabited by these birds, and I shall content myself by 

 adding but slightly to their accounts. 



My first meeting with these birds was on the evening of Feb- 

 ruary 26. While walking at dusk toward camp on the sand ridge 

 bordering the shore of Lake Kissimmee, I noticed an owl standing 

 near the mouth of a burrow placed about the center of the ridge 

 ami less than thirty feet from the lake shore. Almost at the same 

 moment I saw another, its companion, flying low and alighting on 



1 Auk, Vol. IX, Jan., 1892. 

 "Auk, Vol. IX, July, 1892. 



3 O. & O., Vol. XIV, 1889, p. 33. 



4 Life Histories of N. Am. Birds, No. I, 1892, p. 400. 



