302 



LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



a young chicken just hatched. They grew very fast, and in eight days com- 

 menced to show signs of pinfeathers and had strength enough to snap their 

 bills. About this time, May 18, I found one of the young with its head miss- 

 ing, which I could not account for unless food got short, and rather than see 

 tliciii all starve the birds fed one to the others. Next day the body had disap- 

 peared. I put all the remains of birds skinned on the top of the box; they 

 made way with these and the young grew very fast. By the 25th, fifteen days 

 after hatching, they had their eyes open. They would now back up into a 

 corner, snapping their bills on my trying to get them out. * * * They were 

 still in the box on June 14, when I went to the Farallon Islands, so do not 

 know how they got on after that. * * * 



"I found one the past spring that had taken up quarters in an old wood 

 rat's nest placed 'on' a limb of a bay tree some 30 feet from the ground. 

 A large mass of dead leaves from the tree had been put together and a hol- 

 low formed in the center, lined with feathers of fowls and birds." 1 



Mr. B. T. Gault writes me as follows: "On May 12, 1883, while riding 

 through the timber along the Santa Anna River, near Riverside, California, 

 a nest of this subspecies was unexpectedly discovered in an old abandoned 

 Woodpecker's hole, presumably that of Colaptes cafer, in a cottonwood tree. 

 It seemed remarkable that such a small hole would so easily accommodate a 

 bird of this size, as we had to enlarge it to enable me to insert my hand 

 in order to examine its contents, and I was not a little surprised in doing so 

 to find it occupied by a family of these Owls, consisting of one of the parent 

 birds and four young, perhaps ten days old. The mother bird appeared 

 dazed when brought to the light, and singularly enough in taking her from 

 the nest the entire , brood was also removed at the same time, she having 

 instinctively grasped one of the young, that one another, and so on until 

 they all became attached, and they certainly presented a ludicrous sight as 

 they came dangling out of the hole, each retaining a firm hold of the other, 

 but the young finally dropped off and tumbled to the ground." 



Their favorite nesting sites are old Woodpeckers' holes or natural cavities 

 in oak. and cottonwood trees, generally not over 15 feet from the ground. 

 According to Mr. Emerson's observations, incubation lasts about twenty-three 

 days, and I believe he is the first ornithologist who published the fact that 

 these Owls were hatched blind. Mr. Lynds Jones confirms this fact, and 

 has observed it in the young of Megascops asio. 



In California nidification usually commences about the middle of April, 

 occasionally in the latter part of March, and again, in late and cold seasons, 

 not until the beginning of May. The eggs, numbering from three to six, 

 generally four, and occasionally five, are deposited at intervals of one or two 

 days. Incubation ordinarily does not begin until the set is complete. 



'Ornithologist and Ooiogist, Vol. x, 1885, No. 2, pp. 173, 174. 



