128 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In habits the Hawk owl is the most diurnal of the family. It is 

 usually seen watching for its prey from some exposed perch and, when 

 disturbed, pitches downward and flies rapidly away over the tops of the 

 grass or bushes, gliding abruptly upward when alighting. Its note is 

 " a shrill cry uttered generally when the bird is on the wing " (Fisher). 



Speotyto cunicularia hypogaea (Bonaparte) 

 Burrowing Owl 



Strix hypogaea Bonaparte. Amer. Orn. 1825. 1:72 



Speotyto cunicularia hypogaea. A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. 

 p. 177. No. 378 



speotyto, Gr., <n;eo<;, cave, and TUTU, a hoot owl; cuniculdria, Lat., a burrower; hypo- 

 gaea, Lat.,=Gr. UXOYSIO?, underground 



Description. Small; no ear tufts; 

 legs long and scantily feathered; feet bare 

 except for a few bristles. Upper parts 

 grayish brown profusely spotted with 

 white; under parts whitish spotted with 

 brown in broken bars. 



Length 9.5 inches; extent 23; wing 

 6-5-7- 



Distribution. The little burrowing 

 owl is purely an accidental visitant in 

 New York. There is only one record of 

 its occurrence, a specimen taken in New 

 York City, and reported in Forest & 

 Stream 5, 4, August 12, 1875. It had 

 wandered far from its home, for the 

 species inhabits the Western States 

 hypo- from British Columbia and Manitoba 

 south to Louisiana and Panama. It 

 lives mostly in the burrows of Prairie dogs and other rodents, but the 

 subspecies which lives in southern Florida is said to excavate its own 

 nesting holes. 



Bun-owing owi. Speotyto 



gaea (Bonaparte). From specimen in Am. Mus. Nat. 



Hist, j nat. size 



