SCREECH OWL 177 



two remaining eggs. Also a dead white-bellied mouse 

 (^Mus leucopus)^ lay with them, its tail curled round 

 one of the eggs. 



May 25, 1855. Scared a screech owl out of an apple 

 tree on hill ; flew swiftly off at first like a pigeon wood- 

 pecker and lit near by facing me ; was instantly visited 

 and spied at by a brown thrasher ; then flew into a hole 

 high in a hickory near by, the thrasher following close to 

 the tree. It was reddish or ferruginous. 



May 26, 1855. At the screech owl's nest I now find 

 two young slumbering, almost uniformly gray above, 

 about five inches long, with little dark-grayish tufts 

 for incipient horns (?). Their heads about as broad as 

 their bodies. I handle them without their stirring or 

 opening their eyes. There are the feathers of a small 

 bird and the leg of the Mus leucopus in the nest. 



Sept. 23, 1855. 8 P. M. — I hear from my chamber 

 a screech owl about Monroe's house this bright moon- 

 light night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the 

 whinner of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued 

 or smothered a note or two. 



Oct. 28, 1855. As I paddle under the Hemlock bank 

 this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o'clock, I see a screech 

 owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about 

 three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. It sits 

 with its head drawn in, eying me, with its eyes partly 

 open, about twenty feet off. When it hears me move, it 

 turns its head toward me, perhaps one eye only open, with 

 its great glaring golden iris. You see two whitish trian- 

 gular lines above the eyes meeting at the bill, with a sharp 

 ^ [Now known as Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensisi] 



