Vol j 9 ^jP n ] Coolidge, Notes on the Screech Owl. 51 



During the course of a day in which a mouse, bird or June bug 

 had been eaten, the indigestible parts, as fur, feathers, bones, 

 wing-scales, were thrown up in a pellet. 



Although there was always a dish of water in the cage, I saw 

 the owl drink but once,— just after he had been taken out into 

 the sunshine and had been made furious by much handling. From 

 his somewhat bedraggled appearance on many mornings, I judged 

 that the owl often bathed at night. One noon, also, shortly after 

 an experience similar to that which caused him to drink, the wet- 

 ness of his plumage showed that he had bathed. 



Besides the calls already mentioned, there were others. Some- 

 times on one's going to his cage in the evening the owl would give 

 once what sounded like that part of the usual Screech Owl call 

 in which the quavering voice is kept at one note. When hungry, 

 he whined, in a high key, faintly and hoarsely. One evening 

 he gave a call which sounded something like, Yvck, yuck, yuclc, 

 yuck, the "yucks" at about the same rate as the notes of a flicker's 

 long ."laugh." 



The pity for blindness expressed by most who saw the owl by 

 daylight was undoubtedly wasted. He would watch crows several 

 hundred yards away, and if an ant or other insect strayed into the 

 cage, he was sure to watch it intently. Taken into direct sun- 

 light, he generally stiffened slightly and blinked, but as he always 

 did this at sight of a foe, it does not indicate that the light pained 

 his eyes. In the sunlight he often panted, seeming to suffer more 

 from heat than from light. Anyone who has seen Screech Owls 

 in the field knows that it is as hard to stalk them from the sunny 

 side as from the shady. At the sight of his image in a mirror, 

 he showed surprisingly little excitement. 



For the purpose of using my owl as a decoy, it was my custom 

 to tie him by one leg with a short string to a stick, an undertaking 

 which always produced a struggle, in which, and only in which, 

 he would bite uncomfortably. For success in attracting birds, 

 it was necessary to draw T the attention of Robins or Chickadees 

 to the owl, for only they would give a general alarm. This ac- 

 complished, other birds would join in the "rough-house." Be- 

 sides Robins and Chickadees, I noted Orioles, Chipping Sparrows, 

 and various species of warblers and vireos. A longer list would 



