BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. Als 
bill and the eye; wings and tail with white spots on both webs, 
the latter with from eight to ten pairs; bill light yellow; iris 
yellow; tarsus feathered. 
Length, 10; wing, 7.25; tail, 4.50. 
Habitat, Arctic America. 
NYCTALA ACADICA (GMELIN). (372.) 
SAW-WHET OWL. 
This species is quite common in restricted sections, and just 
how restricted it is quite impossible to say until its distribution 
can be further investigated. As far back as 1868, I frequently 
visited a family residing 24 miles from the city and in the heart 
of the Big Woods, who were familiar with this species under 
its popular name. They assured me that it was a permanent 
resident, breeding in woodpeckers’ holes sometime in April. 
Succeeding opportunities enabled me to confirm their state- 
ments, and I found the bird quite common during that portion 
of the autumn when ruffed grouse shooting was the order of 
the day. The nest is furnished with some grass, and feathers 
occasionally. The eggs are very clear, almost translucent 
white, and four to five in number. It is emphatically a noc- 
turnal species, living upon small quadrupeds, birds and insects. 
It has been reported to me by the lumbermen at several of the 
logging camps in winter. 
The larger portion of the earlier choppers were former resi- 
dents of Maine, where they said that the Saw-whet was a com- 
mon species, and that they knew that this was the same, not 
only by its general appearance but by the saw-filing note it 
kept up in March specially. This last is a striking character- 
istic of the species, and very familiar to observing residents of 
the sections where they breed. They are extremely cautious 
and sly about their breeding, but at other times they seem quite 
confiding. The nests are more commonly placed in the forks 
of a sapling, but occasionally in the nest of another bird or in 
a knot-hole in a larger tree, and consists of sticks, dry leaves 
and feathers. The eggs are layed in early April, and are three 
in number, nearly round in outline, and pure white. The food 
of the Saw-whets is principally insects in summer, but they eat 
almost anything when driven to it by hunger. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
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 
