ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



179 



SAW-W HET OWL. 



.SCREECH OWL. 



GROLT \I. SCREECH OWLS, OtUS. 



The Screech Owl, Of us asio (Linn.), is the commonest owl 

 about our houses, and the one which, in daylight, is most often 

 the object of persecution by mobs of small birds. These seem 

 instinctively to recognize their hereditary nocturnal enemy, and 

 to appreciate its comparative helplessness in the blinding light of 

 dav. 



Its name is undeserved, for the ordinary call of these birds, far 

 from being a screech, is a tremulous, quavering series of notes, 

 not at all vmmusical. especially to those who associate it with 

 pleasant memories. 



Screech Owls do not migrate, and even in winter do not w-ander 

 far from their favorite hollow tree. There is hardly any orchard 

 of old gnarled trees which does not shelter one of these fluffy owds 

 deep within some hollow trunk. 



A curious phenomenon of color is found in a number of spe- 

 cies of owls, but is especially marked in the Screech Owls. This 

 is called dichromatism — two distinct color phases being found, 

 which, so far as we know, are independent of age, sex or season. 

 If we take four or five voung birds from a nest and rear them bv 



