166 



THE OOLOGIST. 



to the stump and dealt it a resounding 

 blow with the small hatchet which I 

 usually carry with me on such occasions. 

 Much to my surprise a large owl came 

 hustling out of a hole some ten feet 

 from the ground, and flying across the 

 canyon, settled on a dead sycamore 

 limb, thus permitting a good view of 

 her brown body, heavily marked with 

 blotches and bars of a darker shade. 

 Up to the tree I went, and peering into 

 the hole saw some three feet down three 

 pure white eggs on a bed of rotten 

 wood. I returned to the bottom of the 

 canyon and got my rifle (a 22 calibre 

 collecting gun) and my box. When I 

 came back the owl was still sitting 

 where I had left her, and when I came 

 in sight she commenced snapping her 

 beak at me, much as does the Long- 

 eared Owl. I noticed that her face and 

 in fact most of her head was much 

 lighter in color than the rest of her 

 body, and though quite sure of the 

 species, I shot her, and upon careful 

 comparison with description and 

 measurements given by various authors, 

 I proved her to be the Spotted Owl. 

 This bird was very near as large as the 

 average of two female skins of the 

 Pacific Horned Owl now in my pos- 

 session, she being 20.50 inches long and 

 having a wing length of 13.75 inches. 



The eggs are much like those of the 

 Horned Owl, only rather more glossy 

 and a trifle smaller. In fact they are 

 perfectly similar in all ways to those of 

 the Barred Owl of the eastern states. 

 These three were fresh, but dissection 

 showed her to have laid her full com- 

 plement. 



At a distance this bird when in re- 

 pose would pass for a Horned Owl, 

 though in the three cases which have 

 come to my notice, the male Spotted 

 Owl did not appear at the nest ias the 

 male Pacific Horned usually does, nor 

 did the female Spotted Owl make any 

 noise whatever, save the snapping of 

 beak, during my stay at the nest, - a 



trait common to the female of the Pa- 

 cific Horned. I have taken sets of this 

 latter bird from nests with the male 

 and female sitting on a boulder not 

 twenty feet away and "hooting" with 

 all their lungs. 



My second set, consisting of two eggs 

 I found in an old hollow sycamore stub, 

 which had fallen slanting across the 

 creek bed, and was led to its discovery 

 as I have been to several nests of the 

 Pacific Horned Owl, by a tell tale 

 feather which still clung to the rough 

 bark of the tree. This was on the 16th 

 day of April and was in the Santa Ana 

 canyon about eleven miles from my 

 home. I did not shoot this bird as she 

 was on the nest and well seen. Incu- 

 bation fresh, but as one egg had slight 

 traces of blood, I consider it a full set. 

 On the 18th of April, just two days 

 later, I took my third set from a hole 

 in a live oak about 20 feet from the 

 ground, the eggs being laid about a 

 foot and a half in from the entrance. 

 The bird was on as before but also left 

 with a few snappings of her beak when 

 I rapped on the trunk. This was a 

 natural cavity and had, I think been 

 occupied by Desert Sparrow Hawks the 

 season before. There were four eggs 

 in this set and all were more or less in- 

 cubated indicating that the bird had 

 made a business of sitting on the eggs 

 from the time the first was laid. No 

 attempt at nest building was made, 

 though the hole was very near horizon- 

 tal with nothing to prevent the eggs 

 rolling out should they once get started. 

 The eggs were similar to the two 

 previous sets and not so granulated or 

 "lumpy" as type eggs of the Pacific 

 Horned Owl usually are. 



On the whole, I think from my ex- 

 perience this season that the Spotted 

 Owi is about one-third as numerous 

 during the breeding season in southern 

 California as is the Pacific Horned Owl, 

 of which I took nine sets this year 

 against the three sets of the Spotted 



