1S92.] General Notes. '^Q'^ 



mountainside, when the 3'oung bird flew out toward me and lit on the 

 dead branch of a cedar in short range. I fired and it fell, catching a 

 branch below and hanging suspended by one foot just out of my reach. 

 While hunting a stick to pull it down with, a /too sounded close at hand, 

 and one of the parents, carrying something in its claws, passed over my 

 head and lit on the same branch from which I had just dropped the young 

 bird. It was awfully short range, but a rare bird badly shot up is better 

 than no specimen. Fortunately my shot did not damage it as badly as I 

 had feared. There was light enough yet for me to see that I held in my 

 hand my first Spotted Owl {Syrniitm occidentale). By feeling around in 

 the twigs and leaves I found the object it had carried in its claws; this 

 proved to be a wood rat {Neotoma fuscipcs) with head wanting, and cold, 

 so it evidently had been caught the previous night and kept for later use. 



Toward morning I heard the other Owl, and early the next evening I 

 started for my post again, but before reaching it I heard the call of the 

 Owl. I soon found and shot him. During the remainder of our stay we 

 heard no more sounds of either young or adult of this species. 



The ordinary notes heard were a succession of three syllables, alike in 

 tone and volume, the first followed quickly by the second and then a pause 

 of considerable lengt hbefore the third — /too, hoo, — koo. The other 

 series of notes is different and has a curious canine quality of tone; they 

 were usually four, uttei^ed rather rapidly, becoming emphatic toward the 

 end, and may be represented by the formula : ok, 00, ou, oiv. 



The altitude of the place where I shot the Owls is about 5,000 feet, and 

 the heavily timbered mountainside faces the north, so it is cool and shady. 

 From my brief experience with the species I should think that the Spotted 

 Owl, like its eastern congener the Barred Owl, is abroad earlier in the 

 evening and later in the morning than the Great Horned Owl. How similar 

 the notes are to the Barred Owl's I cannot say, as it is so many years since 

 I heard the Barred Owl that I have forgotten its note. — F. Stephens, 

 Santa Tsabel, Cala. 



Coccyzus americanus occidentalis in Washington. — On July 8, 1892, I 

 saw and positively identified a California Cuckoo (^Coccyzus americanus 

 occidentalis) at Ridgefield, Clarke County, Washington. The bird, an 

 adult." and probably a female, flew out from a strip of small firs, and took 

 a low perch on the edge of the woods, about twenty-five feet from where I 

 was standing. It stayed some time, preening its feathers. The night of 

 July 9 — a bright moonlit one — I heard the kuck, kuck of a Cuckoo 

 coming from the treetops of this grove of small firs. The note was rap- 

 idly given four or five times in succession; and the call several times re- 

 peated. The call was not rolled out to such length as that of the bird 

 given in my Gray's Harbor List (Auk, Jan., 1892). 



On July 18, my cousin, Mr. Harold L. Gilbert of Portland, Oregon, was 

 attracted to this same spot by the birds' calls, and discovered a family of 

 five — two adults and three youngsters. He shot the adults and one young 



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