40 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of the hawks are permanent residents wherever found. 

 Owls swallow their food whole, when not too large, and 

 later eject the indigestible bones and fur in the form of 

 pellets. Find a hollow tree or a thick evergreen where 

 an owl is accustomed to roost and search the ground for 

 some of these pellets. Examine them and see how few 

 contain feathers or bones of birds and how many the 

 skulls of the obnoxious mice. 



It is well that we have such a natural check upon the 



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HONKS AND FUR SWALLOWED BY OWLS 



Some owl pellets dissected to show that they are composed entirely of the 

 bones and fur of mice and rats. Owls swallow their food whole and 

 later eject the indigestible parts in the form of these pellets. 



increase of mice, otherwise we would be overrun with 

 them. The common meadow mouse, for example, has 

 six or seven litters a year and from six to eight at a 

 litter. With thirty-five as a conservative estimate of the 

 young of a female each year, in five years we could have 

 trom a single female nearly five million offspring, doing at 

 least $100,000 damage each year. Fortunately each owl 

 requires the equivalent of over a .thousand mice a year 

 in order to live and few mouse families are allowed to 

 multiply unchecked. 



There have been a few cases, however, when mice 

 have multiplied unchecked for some years and we have 

 had the so-called "plagues of voles," or plagues of mice. 

 An interesting sequel of these infestations has been that 

 they have always been followed by flights of owls, the 

 unusual abundance of food attracting them from all 

 directions and causing them to remain until the numbers 

 of mice have again been reduced to'normal. 



Thus we see that although all nature seems paralized 

 in the grip of winter, there are still about us a few hardy 

 birds that have remained to finish the work of pest 

 destruction which the weaker species so ably commenced 

 during the spring and summer. Laying aside, altogether, 

 the pleasure which their society and friendliness brings 

 to us, surely the little that we can do toward feeding 

 them as their natural food supply becomes exhausted and 

 as was described in the last issue of this magazine, is 

 one of our best investments. 



GIGANTIC STONE BUFFALO SKULL 



THE plains of Montana were once strewn with 

 buffalo skulls and some are occasionally seen 

 today, although good specimens are becoming 

 rather scarce. What to more than one traveler has at 

 first appeared to be the huge skull of the father of all 

 buffaloes has proven upon closer inspection merely a 

 remarkable likeness a wind-carved piece of stone. 

 Many a hunter, doubtless, seeing this great "skull" has 

 galloped toward it sure that he had found a wonderful 

 trophy. As he approached he probably had misgivings, 



Photo by Beekley, V. S. Geological Survey. 



IS THIS A HUGE BUFFALO SKULL? 



Xo, it is a peculiar rock formation on the Montana plains which at a 

 distance resembles the skull of one of the great animals which once 

 roamed these plains in herds of thousands. 



owing to the great size of the specimen, unless perhaps 

 be took it for the head bones of some extinct monster, 

 the petrified remains of which are found in the West; 

 for there would lie the great skull on its side in character- 

 istic position, one horn pointing upward, the eye socket, 

 and the frontal bone. A close look has always shattered 

 the highest hopes, the "skull" proving to be about 6 feet 

 tall and composed of stone. So there it has been left, to 

 mystify the next unwary traveler. 



