Strange Friendship. 281 



Like Scops asio the Red Owl he leads a solitary exist- 

 ence, save on the approach of warm weather, when the sexes 

 are discovered together, or are heard calling one to the other. 

 Mating commences early in April, and about the middle of 

 the month the birds have located their nests in the hollow of 

 a tree, about twenty feet from the ground, where the female 

 lays her complement of eggs. The entrance to the hole is 

 very small, scarcely two inches in diameter. Upon the 

 female devolves the whole work of incubation, although the 

 male takes a hand in raising the young. The latter leave 

 the nest about the first week of May, and when disturbed 

 make a noise that sounds like a dog sniffling the air, which, 

 when heard, especially at night in heavy timber, is quite 

 certain to startle one and make him fancy a bear or some 

 such animal up a tree near by. 



Some years ago there lived in the hollow of an oak tree, 

 not far from Germantown, a common Chickaree Squirrel 

 Sciurus Hudsoniiis with this little Owl as his sole com- 

 panion. This association reminded me of the connection 

 of the burrowing owl of the West with the singular settle- 

 ments of the prairie dog, the life-relations of the two creatures 

 being really intimate in very many localities, although the 

 owls are simply attracted to the villages of the prairie-dogs 

 as the most suitable places for shelter and nidification, where 

 they find eligible ready-made burrows and are saved the 

 trouble of digging for themselves. Community of interest 

 makes them gregarious to an extent unusual among rapa- 

 cious birds, while the exigencies of life on the plains cast 

 their lot with the rodents. That the owls live at ease in 

 the settlements, and on familiar terms with their four-footed 

 neighbors, is an undoubted fact, but that they have any 

 intimate domestic relations is open to question. That the 

 quadruped and the birds are often seen to scuttle at each 

 other's heels into the same hole when alarmed is no proof 

 that they live together, for in such a case the two merely 

 seek the nearest shelter, independently of each other. In the 



