152 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



This owl, one of the largest, if not the largest in North America, is 

 found in Pennsylvania only as a very rare and irregular straggler in 

 winter. Twenty or more years ago a specimen was captured in Chester 

 county in midwinter by H. B. Graves. About eight years ago Dr. I. F. 

 Everhart, of Scranton, found one dead in the mountains in Lackawanna 

 county. Mr. Geo. B. Sennett tells me one was found a few years ago in 

 the smoke stack of a steamboat at Erie city. Geo. B. Perry, Susque- 

 hanna county, and H. J. Roddy, Perry county, also mention this owl as 

 a straggler. 



GENUS NYCTALA BREHM. 

 Nyctala acadica (GMEL.). 



Acadian Owl ; Saw-whet Owl. / . 



DESCRIPTION (Plate 87). 



"Small ; wings long ; tail short ; upper parts reddish-brown, tinged with olive ; 

 head in front with fine lines of white, and on the neck behind, rump, and scapulars, 

 with large, partially concealed spots of white ; face ashy- white ; throat white ; under 

 parts ashy-white, with longitudinal stripes of pale reddish-brown ; under coverts of 

 wings and tail white ; quills brown, with small spots of white on their outer edges, 

 and large spots of the same on their inner webs ; tail brown, every feather with 

 about three pairs of spots of white ; bill and claws dark ; irides yellow. 



Total length about 7 to 8 inches ; extent about 18 ; wing 5| ; tail 2J to 3 inches. 

 Sexes nearly the same size and alike in colors." B. B. of N. A. 



Habitat. North America at large ; breeding from Middle States northward. 



The Acadian is the smallest owl found in the United States east of 

 the Mississippi river. Although apparently larger, it -is in reality 

 smaller, than our common robin. This pigmy mass of owl-life is, I sup- 

 pose, the species which was regarded as not destructive to poultry and 

 game, by the author of the "Scalp Act," when he introduced therein a 

 clause exempting "The Arcadian Screech or Barn Owl." From the fact, 

 however, that the decapitated heads of pheasants,* nighthawks, 

 chickens, cuckoos, shrikes, and doubtless other birds, were cremated and 

 paid for as the heads of destructive, rapacious "hawks," it is but reason- 

 able to suppose that our little Acadian Owl, when found by the eager 

 scalp hunter, was generally slain, and the bounty of fifty cents given 

 "for the benefit of agriculture and for the protection of game." 



The name Saw-whet is applied to this bird because, at times, its 

 squeaky voice resembles the wheting or filing of a saw. Owing to the 

 small size of this owl, together with the fact that during the daytime it 

 remains secreted in hollow trees, thick foliage or in dark and secluded 



*In December, 1886, Prof. S. F. Baird informed me that he had received for identification, from several 

 counties in Pennsylvania, the heads of Pheasants (Bonasa umbellus). These heads were called by the 

 parties sending them to Prof. Baird ' ' Hawk heads, " and as such they had been presented for the fifty- 

 cent bounty, which had been paid. Prof. Baird also examined some Pennsylvania ' ' wolf scalps, " on 

 which premiums had been given, and ascertained that the so-called "wolf scalps "had been fashioned 

 from pelts of the common Red Fox ( Vulpee fulvus). 



