804 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



habit of frequenting certain localities, make it inconspicuous. Except 

 at the mating season, it is rather quiet. Some years they are more 

 numerous in winter than others. In Southern Indiana they have 

 been most commonly noted from October 18 to January 30. Mr. J. 

 A. Balmer informs me it breeds in the lower Wabash Valley. Dr. 

 Langdon notes that Mr. Dury took full-fledged young of the year, at 

 Avondale, Ohio, in July, 1878. April 29, 1890, Mr. H. W. McBride 

 shot two old ones and caught two young ones in Dekalb County. 

 With us, they must begin laying late in March or early in April. In 

 Wayne County, Mich., Mr. Jerome Trombley reports nests with five 

 eggs, taken in May. (Cook, Birds of Mich., p. 80.) 



Almost always this Owl repairs and uses the old nest of a bird or a 

 squirrel; occasionally it is said to build a nest for itself. The eggs 

 are deposited at intervals of one or two days. Incubation begins with 

 the first egg laid and lasts about three weeks. If the first setting is 

 destroyed, another, and sometimes a third, will be laid. The female 

 incubates, but the male is usually near by. This species, unlike the 

 Short-eared Owl, does all its hunting by night. By day it keeps hid- 

 den in the seclusion of some dark woods or dense thicket. In winter 

 they select a particular spot, 'and in early spring the ejected pellets lie 

 beneath the perch in great numbers. In them the naturalist will find 

 recorded much of the zoological history of the past winter of the 

 neighborhood. Dr. A. K. Fisher gives us the result of the examina- 

 tion of 107 stomachs examined: 1 contained a game bird; 15, 

 other birds; 84, mice; 5, other mammals; 1, insects, and 15 were 

 empty. (Bull. No. 3, Div. 0. and M., U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 145.) Please 

 note what a great proportion of injurious animals these birds destroy. 

 Of the stomachs which contained food, over 93 per cent, contained 

 the remains of small mammals. They are the friends of agriculture. 

 Be careful to protect them. 



*147. (367). Asio accipitrinus (PALL.). 



Short-eared Owl. 



Ear tufts inconspicuous, much shorter than middle toe, with claw. 



Color. Whole plumage varying from bright tawny to buffy white, 

 with conspicuous dark-brown stripes; a small tuft of feathers above 

 hind toe. 



Length, 13.75-17.00; wing, 12.00-13.00; tail, 5.75-6.10. (Fisher). 



RANGE. Nearly cosmopolitan; in America from southern South 

 America to Arctic Ocean. Breeds from Kansas, Indiana and Ohio, 

 southern Oregon, northern Maine. Winters chiefly south of northern 

 boundary of United States. 



