BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 215 
with pale brownish; quills brown with transverse bands, nearly 
white on the outer webs; tail, pale ashy-brown, with about ten 
transverse narrow bands of pale cinereous; under wing coverts 
white, the larger tipped with black; bill and claws light horn 
color; irides yellow. 
Length, 9.50 to 10; wing, 7; tail, 8.50. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
BUBO VIRGINIANUS (GemeLIN). (375.) 
GREAT HORNED OWL. 
A lad about ten years of age recently visited the Twin Cities, 
who had never seen a good many things, among which this 
famous Night King of the forest. He had read of the species, 
but having never seen a forest, or even a forest tree in his 
life, until on his way here it was not strange that he had 
never looked upon, or heard the notes of this wonderful bird. 
Let us imagine his surprise when he was halfway across a 
narrow arm ofa larch swamp spanned by turnpike, walking 
deliberately beside a friend, and heard in the darkness the 
dismal, weird, hoo-o, hoo-o, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, of the Great. 
Horned Owl. The half-breathed half-uttered, ‘‘Gosh!” be- 
comes eloquent in our imaginations, without the touch of any- 
thing bordering on the profane. When I was a lad of the same 
age, and accustomed to hearing those notes, I was spending 
the night with a family of friends, in a densely wooded portion 
of the country, at atime when the moon was ‘full.’ Stepping 
out of the door into the flood of the moonlight just before 
retiring, I heard a characteristic hoot, a long distance away, 
and boylike, hooted back to it. In an instant a response to me 
came from a much nearer point, but in another direction, to 
which I replied as promptly, and again received an answer; 
and this reciprocal hooting for less than a quarter of an hour, 
brought seven different owls of the kind simultaneously 
within visible distance of where I stood, in the shadow of a 
projecting limb of alofty elm. While quietly contemplating 
my success in deceiving and alluring such an unprecedented 
number of owls, a boom from one of them that had, unheard, 
perched immediately over my head, burst upon me so suddenly 
that my courage forsook me, and I sprang incontinently from 
my hiding place into the clear moonlight, where a glance up- 
ward embraced the monstrous bird with every feather erect, 
and eyes expanded, glaring down upon me, instantly following 
which he spread his broad wings and sailed away into depths 
15z 
