THE OOLOCIST 



331 



latter was once the more abundant of 

 the two. 



There is another instance which I 

 wouid like to relate. To my certain 

 knowledge I have never seen an Or- 

 chard Oriole in this vicinity while the 

 Baltimore is very abundant. Upon 

 going to central Illinois, I found the 

 reverse of the case presented, the Or- 

 chard Oriole was present ami the Bal- 

 timore absent. An observing resident 

 informed me that he had never seen 

 one though on a constant outlook for 

 them, and, I may add the presence of 

 the Baltimore is not hard to detect. 



Many instances of a like character 

 might be related. lam at loss in as- 

 signing a reason for this, as I do not 

 think the locality can be unfavorable. 

 Can any of the readers enlighten me? 

 G-. Potter, 

 Peru, Ind. 



A Captive Screech Owl. 



On the morning of Feb. 10th we cap- 

 tured a Screech Owl of the red type in 

 our barn, where he had been driven by 

 the storm. I kept him in the loft 

 for three weeks and so had a good 

 opportunity to study him. I found that 

 he slept in the morning, when it was al- 

 most impossible to awake him, but was 

 very lively in the afternoon. He seemed 

 to prefer to eat at night. He killed two 

 large rats either of which would cer- 

 tainly have outweighed him; a feat 

 wdiich surprised me very much. I have 

 heard him give three distinct notes. 

 One is like twee-ee-ee, twee ee ee, ee-a, 

 ee-a. Another is ov made entirely in 

 the throat. His alarm note is made by 

 snapping his beak. I have never haard 

 him give the schreeching notes in cap- 

 tivity. He measured as follows, wings 

 spread, 19 in.; length, 10! in.; tail 3 in.; 

 ear tufts, li in. 



W. E. Aiken, 

 Benson, Vt. 



A Peculiar Nesting Site- 

 It was early during the collecting of 

 the spring of 1390 that my attention 

 was called to the peculiar nesting site 

 of a pair of Yellow-shafted Flickers 

 which I shall describe. 



On a small hill about a quarter of a 

 mile distant from my home stood a 

 haystack which had been placed there 

 two years. prior to the time of which I 

 write. The neighbor to whom the 

 stack belonged cut it through the mid- 

 dle and hauled away one portion of it, 

 leaving the other standing with one 

 end smoothly trimmed. 



Soon after the opening of the follow- 

 ing spring when I happened to pass 

 that way I saw a pair of Yellow-shafted 

 Flickers about the stack, which showed 

 signs of wanting to make that a "fixed 

 habitation." 



One bright morning a few days later 

 when passing I was greatly amused at 

 the efforts of one of the pair. It was 

 clinging to the perpendicular end of the 

 stack, and throwing out chipped straw 

 from an excavation which it was at 

 work on at a rate to defy competition. 

 The work on the excavation was con- 

 tinued through nearly a week. Of 

 course it was interspersed with frequent 

 romps and song and games of peek-a-boo 

 around the fence posts, a very charact- 

 eristic performance for Flickers which 

 have hit on a nesting site and are pro- 

 gressing in its completion. 



When completed the excavation was 

 about twenty inches deep. The en 

 trance was made eight feet or more 

 above the ground. The burrow was 

 two and one-half inches in diameter 

 and was dug directly into the stack for 

 six inches then turned directly down- 

 ward and was slightly enlarged at the 

 bottom. 



The nest was composed of chips of 

 straw. The depositing of the eggs 

 soon followed the completion of the 

 nest, and on the 28th of May 1890, I took 



