THE GKEAT HOKNED OWL. 381 



purposes of iiidification are olms, oaks, chestnuts, ash, ma plus, pines, spruces, 

 and cedars, and, in the more western parts of their range, sycamores and 

 cottonwood trees. 



The height from the ground varies considerably, some being placed not 

 over 10, others fully 90 feet up, generally averaging from 25 to 40 feet. 

 Among peculiar nesting sites the following deserve mention: 



Judge John N. Clark, of Saybrook, Connecticut, writes me that he found 

 a pair of these birds nesting in a quadruple fork of a large chestnut tree some 

 25 feet from the ground, the eggs lying on the bare wood, without any loose 

 material around them whatever, not even a single leaf. Mr. P. W. Smith, jr., 

 found another pair occupying an old soap box which had originally been put 

 up for squirrels in a grove not over 100 yards from a house. The top of the 

 box had blown off and it was nearly filled with dry leaves. In this condition 

 the Owls had taken possession, and had evidently nested in it several years 

 before discovered by him. 



Such scanty repairs as may be needed are made to the nest sometime 

 before iiidificatiou commences, and perhaps a little lining, consisting of strips of 

 bark and dry grasses , and as incubation advances many of the feathers of 

 the birds are added in the open nests, while if a hollow tree is used, nothing 

 whatever is done, the eggs being deposited on the rubbish, which may have 

 accumulated therein, such as bits of rotten wood, old leaves, and the feathers 

 dropped from the incubating bird. 



An unusual cold and wet spell may freeze or spoil the first eggs laid, and 

 a second set is subsequently added, the former, in such case, are often pushed 

 down among the loose rubbish in the nest. This accounts for some of the 

 extra large sets that are sometimes found, which in reality are two sets, laid 

 at different times, one addled the other fertile. 



From one to five eggs have been found to a set, but as a rule two or three 

 are all that are laid, the smaller number more frequently. In some sections, 

 however, sets of four eggs are not unusual. Mr. J. W. Preston, of Baxter, 

 Iowa, writes me that this number is found by him about once in tliree sets, 

 and that in the early part of March, 1875, he found a set of five eggs too 

 far advanced in incubation to disturb them, and which were all hatched later. 

 This unusually large set was found in an open nest in the top of a medium 

 sized black oak in heavy woods. 



Capt. B. F. Goss writes me that he never found more than tliree eggs 

 in a set, and that two are far more common. He says: "I found two nests 

 with four young in each of them, both in hollow trees. In one the tree had 

 been bent over and broken off, leaving a horizontal hole in the end. Two 

 of the young were more than half grown and partly feathered, the remaining 

 two very small and still in the down. There seemed to be a mouth's differ- 

 ence in their ages, but it occurred to me as being possible that the two large 

 ones got in front and took most of the food, and the other two were dwarfed 

 by starvation. In the second nest the young were of different sizes, the 



