BUXROW1NG OWL. 



DESCRIPTION OF NESTS AND EGGS. 



Nests, placed in holes in the ground which are, however, not excavated by the Owls. The eggs areplacedon any loose 

 material that chances to be at the bottom of the hole. 



E(ir/s, four to seven in nuuiljer, rather spherical in form , pure white in color, with the surface very smooth. Dimension) 

 from f'OOx 1'22 to 1'lOx 1-25. 



HABITS. 



It may appear strange to many of my readers, to find birds so long supposed to be 

 exclusively confined to the western prairies as the Burrowing Owls, given among the birds 

 of Eastern North America and, a few years ago, no ornithologist, even, would have dreamed 

 of adding them to our fauna; yet, as in the affairs of humanity, so it is in bird-life, lor a 

 change has come and, behold, we have the Burrowing Owls on our list. They are appar- 

 ently firmly established there, for, by some chance, to mortals unknown, and at sonic date 

 in the past which no one has recorded, a colony of these Owls came to Western Florida. 

 Here they evidently found dwarf palmettos as congenial to their tastes for shade as prairie 

 grass, and the holes made by the reptilian gophers appear to have suited their wants, as 

 breeding places, as well as those excavated by mammalian gophers, while the. apparent par- 

 adox caused by the local confusion of names, did not puzzle their brains half as much as 

 it has some naturalists, although they had gophers of quite different habits from those to 

 which they had been accustomed, dwelling among them, that had received the decidedly 

 batrachian name of salamander. Truly, names among animals in Florida, have been badly 

 mixed but, as before mentioned, this made but little difference to the Owls and they set- 

 tled in the Land of Flowers, quite near the spot where the valiant De Soto landed, so long 

 ago, on the Bahia Espiritu Santo now known by the less pompous appellation of Tampa 

 Bay. 



I have never seen the Burrowing Owls in Florida but others have been more fortunate, 

 and Mr. Ridgway told the story of their discovery there by Mr. Moor some years ago. 

 He has also decided that the colony which squatted there, claiming the land by preemption, 

 perhaps, unless some Spanish hidalgo presents a prior claim, are entitled to a varietal 

 rank; and this may be true, for such matters depend entirely upon just how one may re- 

 gard species and varieties, for although ornithologists are quite apt to agree in the main, 

 they will differ about some points, and I, for one, have never considered it advisable to 

 adopt the trinominal system for reasons which I have given in the preceding pages. 



The Burrowing Owls also claim a place among our Northern birds, for my friend, Mr. 

 Ruthven Deane, states that a specimen was taken on the marshes at Newburyport, Mass- 

 achusetts, in the spring of 1875; but this was an undoubted straggler, none ever having 

 been seen here before or since. 



As remarked, I have never seen a living specimen of the Burrowing Owl but Mr, 

 Ridgway who has met with them in abundance, informs me that they always breed in de- 

 serted holes made by the prairie dog, or gopher, and that the statements made by travel- 

 ers, that the Owls, gophers, and rattlensakes dwell together in harmony, has no foundation 

 in fact. The Owls choose abandoned burrows which the rattlesnakes only enter, if they 

 do at all, as unwelcorned intruders, perhaps allured there by the prospect of a good meal 

 of young Owls. 



