THE OWLS 



(Families Strigidae and Aluconidae) 



BY A. A. ALLEN, PH.D. 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ORNITHOLOGY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



THERE is something irresistible about an owl. The 

 killing of one creates an excitement like the etch- 

 ing of a horsethief or the hanging of a criminal, 

 and even a dead one draws a crowd. Never is an owl 

 allowed to die a peaceful death, or once dead, to return 

 to dust in the natural way. It must be filled with tow 

 and posed on a root and two great glass eyes must be 

 stuck in its forehead. No shop, no saloon, not even the 

 private home seems 

 complete without 

 its stuffed owl. A 

 morbid charm at- 

 taches to the bird, 

 because it hides 

 during the day and 

 comes out at night 

 when evil deeds are 

 perpetrated. The 

 call of an owl is a 

 sign of approaching 

 death and one must 

 be quick to turn his 

 pockets inside out 

 in order to save his 

 life or that of some 

 one dear to him. 

 This and many oth- 

 er superstitions 

 cling to the poor 

 innocuous bird that 

 sometimes ap- 

 proaches our dwell- 

 ings to rid the gar- 

 den of mice and 

 rats. 



There are over 

 300 species and 

 sub-species of owls 

 in the world of 

 which only nine are 

 found in North 

 America, but some 

 species occur everywhere, from the Arctic to the Ant- 

 arctic, with the exception of a few islands. Some 

 species, notably the short-eared owl, are nearly cosmo- 

 politan in their distribution but the majority, if not local, 

 show such range of variation in different localities as to 

 be separately named. Thus the Great Horned Owl in 

 North America is divided into eight different races and 

 the screech owls into nine. 



In size owls vary from the elf owl of our Southwest, 

 not much larger than a sparrow, or about six inches long, 



A MAGNIFICENT THIEF 

 About the poultry or game farm, the great-horned owl is a bird to be feared and persistently 

 trapped, but elsewhere he is too magnificent and beneficial a bird to warrant wholesale destruc- 

 tion. This is a captive specimen, trapped at a game farm where it was stealing pheasants. 



to the great gray owl of Northern Canada that measures 

 27 inches in length and fully five feet from tip to tip 

 of its wings. 



In color and also in form, owls are very much alike 

 so that no one has any difficulty in recognizing owls as 

 such at sight. The predominating colors are browns and 

 grays though some species are distinctly yellowish, others 

 reddish brown, and the snowy owl, of the far north, 



largely white. As 

 in color, they are 

 also distinctly 

 similar in habit. 

 They hide during 

 the day in hollow 

 trees or against the 

 trunk, and the more 

 they resemble the 

 bark or dead wood, 

 the less likely are 

 they to bp disturb- 

 ed. So we find 

 that the woodland 

 owls, which group 

 includes most spe- 

 cies, are mottled, 

 streaked and bar- 

 red with various 

 shades of brown 

 and gray. To fur- 

 ther add to the 

 camouflage, the 

 heads of a number 

 of species are 

 adorned with tufts 

 of feathers called 

 horns or ears, 

 which give them a 

 jagged contour and 

 render the protec- 

 tive coloration the 

 more effective. The 

 short-eared owls 

 that live in the marshes are yellow and more striped 

 like the dead vegetation, the burrowing owls are more 

 sandy, like the soil, and the snowy owls, belonging to the 

 frozen north, are much whiter than the average. Other- 

 wise there is remarkable uniformity of color in all 

 the species. 



All owls are carnivorous and have sharp talons and 

 strongly hooked bills. In this respect they are very 

 similar to the hawks. Indeed, until recent years, because 

 of their superficial resemblance a close relationship be- 



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