Yol 'l9n VI11 ] Sherman, Nest Life of the Screech Owl. 165 



tore off and ate a mouthful, then rested four or five minutes before 

 eating again. On May 28 the youngest fledgling was watched 

 while it ate the front leg of a gopher. Twice it tried to swallow 

 the piece and was obliged to disgorge and tear off bits of the flesh, 

 on the third trial the leg disappeared bone and all, the whole per- 

 formance occupying upwards of twenty minutes. That fore leg 

 had not been weighed, but its mate remained and was found to 

 weigh 203 grains: the weight of the owlet that night was 1904 

 grains. To use a well worn illustration it was equivalent to a boy 

 weighing ninety -five pounds eating at one meal a ten pound leg 

 of mutton. The young Owls could not be induced to eat when 

 outside of their nest. One evening while in the house they would 

 not touch young English Sparrows offered them, but ate them the 

 moment they were returned to the nest. 



Pellets ejected by the young were found for the first time on 

 May 10; it may be well to note that this was the first date upon 

 which they were seen eating the food that lay in the nest. A 

 pellet disgorged on May 27 weighed sixty-two grains, which was 

 one-thirtieth of the weight of the bird that ejected it. No pellets 

 from the mother's throat were found in the nest, yet once she was 

 known to have remained there continuously for twenty-one hours. 

 She seemed to have well defined ideas of house-keeping. Not 

 always did the food dropped into the nest by her mate fall close 

 to the wall beneath the hole, and the contributions to her larder 

 that were pushed in through a peep-hole never fell there, but soon 

 all was piled up in orderly shape against the north wall beneath 

 the entrance hole, which seemed to be the normal arrangement 

 until she was disturbed by the frequent opening of the hand-hole; 

 she then changed her location to the north side of the nest and piled 

 the game on the south side. One day the temperature rose to mid- 

 summer heat, and some of the excessive supply of food became 

 exceedingly gamy and over-ripe. Discontinuance of the nest study 

 was threatened, but in the night there was a clearing out of objec- 

 tionable matter and such conditions did not recur. Nor did the 

 plumage of the young become soiled. Their natural position in 

 the nest seems to have been a standing one, this taken with the 

 fact that the nest was made abo.ve a deep bed of sawdust may 

 account for this cleanliness. 



