OWLS. 347 



IV. NYCTALA. 



A. TENGMALMI RiCHARDSONi. (American) Sparrow 

 Owl. Richardson's Owl. In Massachusetts, extremely rare.* 



a. About 10| inches long. Except in size, essentially like 

 N. acadica (B). 



b. Dr. Brewer describes one egg as measuring 1.28 X 

 1.C6 of an inch. 



c. The American Sparrow Owl is another species, whose 

 occurrence in Massachusetts, even as a winter visitor, is 

 quite accidental, and about whose habits not much is appar- 

 ently known by modern ornithologists. I have never seen 

 one alive, and I shall therefore quote the brief biography of 

 Audubon, who in his turn is obliged to quote from Richard- 

 son. 



" I procured a fine male of this Species at Bangor, in Maine, 

 on the Penobscot, in the beginning of September, 1832 ; but 

 am unacquainted with its habits, never having seen another 

 individual alive. Mr. TOWNSEND informs me that he found 

 it on the Malade River Mountains, where it was so tame and 

 unsuspicious, that Mr. NUTTALL was enabled to approach 

 within a few feet of it, as it sat upon the bushes. Dr. RICH- 

 ARDSON gives the following notice respecting it in the ' Fauna 

 Boreali- Americana ' : ' When it actually wanders abroad in 

 the day, it is so much dazzled by the light of the sun as to be- 

 come stupid, and it may then be easily caught by the hand. 

 Its cry in the night is a single melancholy note, repeated at 

 intervals of a minute or two. Mr. HUTCHINS informs us that 

 it builds a nest of grass half way up a pine tree, and lays 

 two white eggs in the month of May. It feeds on mice and 

 beetles. I cannot state the extent of its range, but believe 

 that it inhabits all the woody country from Great Slave Lake 

 to the United States. On the banks of the Saskatchewan it 

 is so common that its voice is heard almost every night by 

 the traveler, wherever he selects his bivouac.' ' 



* An irregular and very rare winter possibly breed in northern New Eng- 

 visitor to the whole of New England, land, as its eggs have been taken on 

 reported of tenest from Maine. It may the Magdalen Islands. W. B. 



