THE OOLOGIST 



39 



of Payne, had asked me to help his 

 boy scouts find a nest of the Horned 

 Owl. The boys were too noisy and 

 talked too much for us to have much 

 luck in finding a nest. The Crows 

 were continually harrassing a pair of 

 the birds and seemed to be chasing 

 them all about the woods. We were 

 about to give it up when I noticed one 

 of the Owls alight in a tree quite a 

 distance away. We were soon at the 

 tree and near-by found the down- 

 covered nest which had been used by 

 the Crows one or two years before. 

 This nest was not more than twenty- 

 five feet high in an elm and there was 

 very little left of it except the mud, 

 a few twigs and a little binder twine. 

 The two dirty eggs were cold when 

 taken and Mr. Parady informed me 

 later that they were heavily incubated. 

 Neither bird put in an appearance nor 

 was heard of while we were at the 

 nest. This nest was in the same 

 woods where numbers two and three 

 were found, but was quite near the 

 north edge. 



Nest number five was found in some 

 woods near a portable saw mill. It 

 was found February 23, 1920. This 

 was a natural cavity and was about 

 twenty-five feet up. There were 

 plenty of feathers about the entrance 

 to the cavity, but very few inside 

 although there was plenty of snow 

 and ice inside, surrounding the eggs. 

 Mrs. Owl left at the first rap of my 

 climbing irons and was not seen or 

 heard later. The day was very cold 

 and I had a great deal of trouble hang- 

 ing to the bark with my cold, numbed 

 fingers. This was another foolhardy 

 climb. The tree was about thirty 

 inches in diameter at the base and 

 perhaps twenty-five inches at the 

 cavity. The cavity was very large 

 and deep enough that the sitting bird 

 could not be seen from the ground. T j^ 

 eggs were slightly incubated. 



Nest number six was found March 

 13, 1921, about one and a half miles 

 southwest of Payne, in a small woods 

 and not more than five hundred feet 

 from a house. It was hard to believe 

 that these Owls would use such a 

 small woods for nesting, and it was 

 only my curiosity that caused me to 

 get the eggs. I had noticed what ap- 

 peared to be an old Crow's nest fully 

 fifty feet up in the fork of a red oak 

 near the center of the woods. There 

 were no downy feathers clinging to 

 the sides of the nest and the "horns" 

 of the sitting bird appeared almost 

 exactly like pieces of corn husks 

 which might have been dragged up 

 by a fox squirrel or a raccoon. A rap 

 on the tree brought no results, nor 

 indeed a series of raps with a large 

 club. Clubs thrown at the nest 

 brought no results and I had walked 

 away deciding to give it up as I didn't 

 care to climb fifty feet for nothing. 

 After walking some distance from the 

 tree I decided to return and try it 

 again. After throwing several clubs, 

 I finally placed one so near one of the 

 "horns' that Mrs. Owl moved it ever 

 so slightly, but enough to let me know 

 that it was not a corn husk. When 

 about half way to the nest Mrs. Owl 

 flew off and sailed up in the top of 

 a tree nearby, where she did a great 

 deal of hooting until a rapidly in- 

 creasing flock of crows drove her 

 away. The nest was an old Crow's 

 nest with an addition of a few bits of 

 moss and a very few feathers. The 

 two eggs were very dirty and were 

 considerably incubated, but were 

 changed to an excellent set with 

 small holes and a spotless surface. 



Nest number seven was found March 

 25, 1922, in Allen County, Indiana, 

 about seventeen miles east of Ft. 

 Wayne. This was a natural cavity 

 forty feet up at the top of a large liv- 

 ing sycamore in a dense and very wet 



