372 Bkndire 071 the Habits of Glancidium. [October 



under ' Notes on the Natural History of the Birds of Brazil,' by 

 Carl Euler. 



According to this authority, small as the Ferruginous Pygmy 

 Owl is, it has been known to carry off young chickens, and he 

 was informed by the natives that it even attacked Jacii-hens 

 (/'e/ze/o/e), a bird of greater size than domestic fowls. It was 

 stated to him that the little Owl fastened itself under the 

 wings of the latter, gradually tearing it to pieces, and wearing 

 it out and eventually killing it. I am aware, from personal ob- 

 servations, that some of our small Owls are the peer, as far as 

 courage is concerned, of the noblest Falcon ever hatched, 

 but I should not quite care to father that story. Carl Euler 

 says further that in captivity, when fed on birds, it always 

 carefully removed ail the larger feathers from the carcass, 

 before beginning its meal. Also that it was not at all afraid 

 of light, and that he met with it several times during bright 

 sunshiny days, sitting on perfectly bare and leafless trees. He 

 gives its call note as '•khiu^ khiu.' Apparently none of us men- 

 tioned here, agree on the call note of this Owl, and I leave it to 

 the reader to take his choice. 



Euler surmises that it rears two broods a season, one in Octo- 

 ber, the other in December. He met once in March, a family of 

 four, two adult and two young, sitting close together on a limb 

 of a tree, waiting, as he says, for twilight. The nest is said to be 

 made in hollow trees ; no mention is made of the eggs having 

 been found, however, and I cannot find any description of them 

 in any of the works accessible to me. 



A nest containing two fully fledged young, found by me in an 

 old mesquite tree in the spring of 1872, in a chaparral thicket near 

 Camp Lowell, and refen-ed to by me at the time as being that of 

 Micratheiie whitneyi^ may possibly, and probably, have been 

 one of this little Owl, as the Elf Owl seems to confine itself in its 

 nesting sites to buriows in giant cactus {Cerezcs giganteus P), 

 so far as known. 



An additional new subspecies of G/auczdzum has recently 

 been described in 'The Auk,' Vol. V, April, 1888, p. 136, by 

 William Brewster, under the name of Glaticidium gnoma hos- 

 kinsii Brewster, Hoskins' Pygmy Owl, from the Sierra de la 

 Laguna, Lower California, and which properly also belongs to 

 our fauna. Nothing whatever is known respecting its habits as 

 yet. 



