68 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXVI 



brethren below. Such is Empusa grilli. A third 

 may fall a prey to a wasp. A fourth is parasitized, 

 while others fall victims to birds. Thus it is that 

 the original numbers diminish by more than half, 

 yet a single survival producing eggs may double 

 the pre\'ious year's output. In other words for 

 every 50 eggs laid some 48 must be accounted for 

 by death before they mature into adults in order 

 to maintain a balance. A tremendous task for 

 nature to provide for. On the other hand, should 

 this balance fall below the figures indicated then 

 there will be a rapid decHne in the grasshopper 

 birth rate and a corresponding reduction in such 



of their enemies as depend upon them for food. 

 How involved their economic relations are! How 

 unfit are we, with our present knowledge, to judge 

 which one should live or die even to provide for 

 our own benefits! 



It may be that in the dim future cultivation 

 will have become intensified and every acre of 

 land be so fully utilized that the old grasshoppers 

 of the plains will have ceased to exist. If that is 

 so then many a bird now prevalent will be rare 

 or extinct. The prospect is not a happy one, and 

 so, in spite of the enormous ravages inflicted, we 

 are inclined to say "long life to the grasshopper." 



THE AMERICAN HAWK OWL (Surnis ulula caparoch) 



By F. Napier Smith 



SATURDAY afternoon, the 22nd May, 1915, 

 I left Montreal for Lochaber, P.Q., to visit 

 the Campbell's Bay Club, a private game club 

 situated on the north shore of the Ottawa River, 

 in Latitude 45° 35', Longitude 75° 18 , about 25 

 miles east of Ottawa, Ont. 



I had never \asited this district and was anxious 

 to observe its a\'ifauna, having been told by 

 members of the Club that it was a veritable bird- 

 paradise. I noted with pleasure that that abom- 

 ination, the English Sparrow, was conspicuous by 

 its absence, but I regret I did not discover a single 

 specimen of our beautiful Wood Duck which only 

 two years previously was recorded as breeding in 

 the locality. The only ducks I found nesting were 

 the Black and American Golden-eye (Whistler). 

 Altogether, I recorded 77 species, including such 

 interesting birds as the Scarlet Tanager, Rose 

 Breasted Grosbeak, Great Crested Flycatcher, 

 American Woodcock, Wilson's Snipe and a real 

 'rara avis,' the American Hawk Owl. 



On Sunday morning, at 5.30 a.m., "Old Man" 

 Lussier (the Guardian of the Club) and I started 

 oflf in a canoe to explore the district by land and 

 water. The 'Bay' is virtually a large lagoon, some 

 2^ miles in length and varying from 200 yards to 

 a half-mile in width, and affords an excellent 

 feeding and nesting ground for Ducks, Grebes, 

 Rails, Coots, etc. At noon we found ourselves 

 at Frenchman's Point at the western end of the 

 Bay; here the ground was boggy and in some 

 places under water. The trees had long been 

 dead, and in many cases ail that remained were 

 hollow trunks or merely stumps. All this decay 

 was due to the undermining action of the water 

 which periodically flooded the.se woods. 



On approaching the shore the first sounds to 

 reach our ears were the guttural calls of the 



Bronzed Crackles, and I soon found that this 

 locality was overrun with these birds and field 

 mice. We had left the canoe and were striking 

 into the woods when the Crackle community set 

 up an unusual hubbub. I hurried to the scene 

 of the commotion and was just in time to see a 

 bird make a well-timed swoop to the ground and 

 clutch a young grackle in its unerring talons; 

 another upward swerve and it had perched on an 

 old ten-foot stump with its victim. The noise 

 the grackles now set up was bedlam let loose, but 

 apparently the least concerned of all present was 

 my new acquaintance the Owl (?) — it must surely 

 be an Owl, but why this hunting in broad daylight, 

 and why that long tail? The parents of the un- 

 fortunate grackle youngster now yelled furiously 

 and made two or three sallies close to the Owl, 

 who raised his head and snarled at them with a 

 quivering red tongue. This warning somewhat 

 arrested the "closing in" tactics of the grackles, 

 who were finally subdued by Mrs. Owl appearing 

 on the scene (I afterwards concluded that the 

 female was on her eggs, both this and the follow- 

 ing day, when I first entered the woods, on each 

 occasion being warned from her nest by the male's 

 cries. I am now convinced that the nest was 

 some distance back and that this was only their 

 hunting-ground; if I had worked on this theory 

 at the time they might have betrayed their nest- 

 ing site by their actions. On both days the female 

 apparently remained off her eggs for some time 

 while we Were in the woods, but as the sun was 

 very hot this can be readily understood.) 



To resume our story; the female perched on a 

 branch of a tree close to the stump which the 

 male had chosen and, with feathers ruffled and 

 wings drooped, gave vent to intermittent spasms 

 of peculiar vibrating sounds, more of a 'squeal' 



