DUSKY EARED-OWL. 21 



brought me on the 31st of March by a man who ob- 

 tained it on Bluefields Mountain. He was engaged 

 in felling a tree, in which the bird was ; being dis- 

 turbed it flew to another at a short distance, when it 

 was struck down with a stick. The time was about 

 noon. The person informed me that he had seen 

 the bird there before, in company with another, 

 which he supposed to be its mate. The stomach 

 of this specimen, a large muscular sac, was filled 

 with an immense quantity of slender bones, which 

 appeared to be those of Anoles, as I discovered by 

 the iguaniform teeth of at least five sets of jaws, 

 of various sizes. They were enveloped in a quan- 

 tity of fetid, black fluid. There were also the re- 

 mains of beetles, and of orthopterous insects. 



Of another, the adult from which my descrip- 

 tion ' was taken, struck down while sitting on a 

 mango tree at Tait-Shafton, on the morning of 

 April 6th, the stomach was stuffed with the hair and 

 bones of a portion of a rat, and the legs of a large 

 spider; a Lycosa, as I believe certainly a ground 

 spider. Most of the eggs in the ovary were mi- 

 nute, though some were as large as mustard-seed; 

 by which I gathered that the period of incubation 

 was yet distant, though the spring was so far ad- 

 vanced. 



The third I had the advantage of seeing alive: 

 one whose downiness indicated youth, was brought 

 me on the 24th of the same month. Its imbecility 

 by day was shewn by the mode of its capture. It 

 was in a small tree on Bluefields Mountain, when 

 a boy, by shaking the tree, caused it to fall to the 



