T.*]0 Bendire on the Habits of Glaiicidiuin. [Octoher 



21, 1S79, p. 133, and a somewhat fuller description of the same, 

 by W. C. Cooper, can be found in the Bulletin of the Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club, Vol. IV, April, 1879, p. 86. 



The two eggs, of which drawings only are before me, are, 

 according to these, ovate in shape, dull white in color, with a 

 scarcely perceptible yellowish tinge. The surface is said to 

 be quite smooth, and to have the appearance of having been 

 punctured with a fine point over the whole egg. Judging from 

 the drawings they are decidedly pointed for Owl's eggs, and 

 perhaps somewhat abnormal in this respect. Their size is given 

 as 1. 18 X .90 and 1.17 X .87 inches. According to the latest 

 classification these eggs would be referable to Glaiicidiiim 

 gnoma calif ornicum. 



During one of my absences from Fort Klamath, on official 

 business matters, one of my men found on June 10, 1883, a biu- 

 row occupied as a nest by the true Glaticidium gnotna, which 

 at the time it was first discovered must have contained eggs. 

 The nest was not disturbed till the day after my return to the 

 Post, June 25, when he showed it to me. The nesting site used 

 was an old deserted Woodpecker burrow, in a badly decayed 

 but still living aspen tree. It was about twenty feet from the 

 ground. The cavity was about eight inches deep and three and 

 a half wide at the bottom. This tree, with two others of about 

 the same size, stood right behind, and but a few feet from a. tar- 

 get butt on the rifle range, which had been in daily use since 

 May I, target firing going on from three to four hours daily. 

 All this shooting did not seem to disturb these birds, for the first 

 egg must necessarily have been deposited some two or three 

 weeks after the target practice season began, but the strangest 

 thing is that the Owls were not discovered long before, as two 

 men employed as markers were constantly behind the butt in 

 question during the firing and directly facing the entrance hole 

 of the burrow. When the nest was shown me I had it exam- 

 ined, and much to my disgust found it to contain, instead of 

 the much coveted eggs, four young birds from a week to ten 

 days days old perhaps. I took these ; two of them are now in 

 the National Museum, the remaining two, in Mr. William 

 Brewster's collection at Cambridge, Mass. The cavity was well 

 filled with feathers of various kinds, and contained, besides the 

 young, the female parent and a full grown Say's chipmunk 

 ( lamias lateralis) that evidently had just been carried in, as 



