50 Coolidge, Notes on the Screech Owl. [ja^ 



performance anything were held before him so that he could not 

 see out, he would side-step rapidly along his perch until he found 

 an opening. Indoors on his first day with me, he slept whenever 

 the room was quiet ; I never discovered him asleep again, although 

 he often looked drowsy in the daytime, and if he slept, it must 

 have occurred late at night or in the early morning. 



His principal diet was raw beef, which cut into pieces the size 

 of the end of one's finger, was fed to him by hand. He would 

 eat meat that was not only luminous but so foul as to be unpleas- 

 ant to prepare for him. Although he was not urged to learn that 

 beef placed in his cage was good to eat, it took him some time to 

 discover the fact. Besides beef, he ate mice, liver, birds, frogs, 

 perch, June bugs, and earthworms: caterpillars he would not 

 eat, and also, unlike another pet Screech Owl of which I heard, 

 he would eat neither bread nor shredded wheat. He ate eagerly 

 in the morning, taking a large amount of food in one meal, but 

 would refuse to eat more until afternoon, or very often until evening. 

 When food was offered him, if hungry, he would take it in his # 

 bill, and if the morsel were small enough, would swallow it at 

 once. If too large for immediate swallowing, he would transfer 

 it to his claw and jump to the floor of the cage. June bugs were 

 generally picked to pieces on the perch. After a thorough biting 

 and pulling of its head, ears, skin, legs, and tail, a dead mouse 

 would be swallowed whole, head first. An eight inch owl gagged 

 with a three inch mouse was a sight more suggestive of pain than 

 of enjoyment; sometimes the mouse's tail would refuse to be 

 swallowed immediately, and might dangle from the owl's bill for 

 a minute or more before disappearing within. Birds, unless small, 

 as nestling English sparrows, were eaten differently from mice. 

 Generally the head and the abdomen were torn to pieces and 

 eaten first, the owl standing on the food with both feet, and with 

 his bill jerking off morsels to be swallowed; the remainder of 

 the bird was sometimes eaten and sometimes abandoned. The 

 owl never troubled himself to kill a bird outright. Pieces of beef 

 too large for instant swallowing, were torn to pieces like birds. 

 If the owl did not care for food which he was thus preparing, he 

 would back away f om it a few steps, stretch up to his full height, 

 and look down at it with a most comical expression and attitude. 



