ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 183 



yellow light. Quick turns of his head show how keen is his vision, 

 perceiving the slightest movement of anything within sight. The 

 sharp talons open and shut on the branch, the bill is given one or 

 two vicious snaps, and. noiseless as a shadow, the dreaded hunter 

 swoops from his perch. 



The most common cry of this owl is a deep, gruff Hod-hoo 

 Ti'/icV) .' given, however, with far less expression and modulation 

 than the utterances of the barred owl. A rarer sound is a sud- 

 den, loud, blood-curdling shriek, which well befits the character 

 of this feathered tiger. Wherever found it is easily master of the 

 night — a noiseless, flying shadow of death, which must ever haunt 

 the timid creatures crouching on the branches or among the 

 stubble. 



Crows have sworn eternal war upon the Great Horned Owl. and 

 when they discover one in the daytime they will shout at it for 

 hours, and persecute it in any way which they dare. Quartering 

 the fields and woods at night, the strong owl swoops unerringly 

 upon rabbit, mouse, or bird. In the north it feeds upon the large 

 Arctic hare and grouse. Xo bird of prey excels it in courage or 

 fierceness, and it is the only bird I know, which, in captivity, will 

 fearlessly attack a man entering its cage. It occasionally kills 

 and devours even our largest hawks — the red-tailed and red- 

 shouldered, while geese and young foxes have been known to fall 

 victims to it. It suft'ers no other large and nocturnal owl to live 

 unmolested on the hunting grounds it has chosen, and whenever 

 Great Horned Owls appear for the first time in a locality, the 

 barred owls rapidly decrease, and finally give way altogether 

 and go elsewhere. Of all the owls this is the most frequent 

 visitor to our hen-roosts, but far from universally condemning it 

 on this account, the habits and food of these birds should be 

 studied in each particular locality before it is indiscriminately 

 slain. The mice, hares, and insects outnumber the poultry three 

 to one in the stomachs of those birds which have been examined. 



Two or three white eggs are laid in a last year's nest of some 

 hawk or crow, and in the latitude of Xew York the eggs are 

 sometimes deposited as early as the first of March, before the last 

 snow flurry has past. 



As the woods are cut down, the Great Horned Owl becomes 

 rarer, everywhere retreating to the wilder, less settled regions. 

 This will be the first species of owl to disappear when mankind 

 has carried his areas of cultivation throughout the mountains and 

 backwoods. 



