96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. * 



occasionally a stray partridge or a grouse. This species is the 

 only one that is at all mischievous on the farm. He is unpop- 

 ular with the farmer, from the fact that he occasionally makes a 

 raid on the poultry, roosting on the trees and fences about the 

 barn and poultry yard. 



I have often shot this owl when his feathers were strongly 

 scented with the- peculiar smell of the skunk, and it is a fact 

 that many of these animals fall victims to the hunger of this 

 bird. I don't know but he • is conferring a favor on the farmers 

 in destroying them, for, although an insect-eater to , a consid- 

 erable extent, the skunk destroys great numbers of birds on 

 their nests, their eggs and young ; and I really question whether 

 the evil he thus accomplishes does not more than counterbalance 

 the good he does in destroying the insects on which he feeds. 



The Long-eared Owl — a smaller species than the Great Horned 

 Owl — also seeks the same localities, but preys on the smaller 

 rodents, the injurious wood mice, ArincolincB, whose injuries to 

 the nurseries and orchards of this country, amount by estima- 

 tion, to many millions of dollars annually. The Short-eared Owl 

 and Barred Owl, both well known birds, haunt the meadows, 

 marshes and low swampy woods, where they destroy multitudes 

 of the injurious meadow-mice, which make these localities their 

 homes through a great portion of the year. The little Saw- 

 Whet Owl, and little Screech or Red Owl, both well-known 

 species, frequent the orchards, gardens and nurseries, where they 

 not only destroy the field mice, but capture immense numbers 

 of the night-flying Lepidoptera, the injurious moths whose 

 caterpillars commit such devastations throughout the country. 

 We often notice, in walking through the fields, wings of some 

 of the larger moths lying on the ground. In nine cases out of 

 ten the insects are killed and eaten by these small owls. I have 

 examined the stomachs of many of these birds, and they almost 

 always contained insects (sometimes beetles and caterpillars,) 

 and small mammals. Very seldom, indeed, have I found birds 

 in them, or, in fact, in any of the other owls. Farmers, in many 

 localities, have become aware of the friendly services rendered 

 by these birds, and protect them as they occasionally meet them 

 flitting about the haystack or shed, or find them, during the 

 day, quietly reposing in a hollow tree in the orchard. And I 

 have heard the remark made hj an observing old farmer, that 



