OWLS OF THE NEARCTIC REGION 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE, 



CURATOR OF BIRDS. 



PART L— General Account. 



Introduction. Adaptations of Plumage and Body. 



Owls and Mankind. Adaptations of Sense Organs. 



Parallels and Relationships. Adaptations of Feet. 



PART IL— Special Account. 



PART I.— GENERAL ACCOUNT. 



INTRODUCTION. 



"Est illis Strigibus nomen ; sed nominis hujus 

 Causa quod horrenda stridere nocte solent." 



Ovid. Fasti, vi, 139. 



IF WE may judge of the rapidity with which mankind is taking 

 possession of the earth, or, to speak from the point of view of 

 the wild creatures, is usurping every habitable portion, it seems 

 safe to say that evolution on any extensive scale is at an end 

 among the larger forms of wild life. To read aright the story 

 of the evolution of past ages, we must decipher the palimpsest 

 which the creatures themselves offer, — their fossil remains, devel- 

 opment, structure, appearance, distribution and habits. When all 

 these are considered both separately and together, we gain the 

 imperfect glimpse into the past, which is all that we can hope. 

 Hence the value of even a fragmentary resume of the known 

 ecology of an individual or group of organisms. 



As is the case with so many groups of birds, we know almost 

 nothing of the ancestry of owls from palaeontological evidence. 

 In deposits of the Eocene Age in the Lower Tertiary in Wyoming, 

 a species of Bubo has been described by Marsh.* Earlier evi- 

 dence of the existence of owls upon the earth, is as yet lacking. 



*Bubo leptosteus Marsh, Am. Jour. Sci., II, 1871, 126. 



