374 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERIOAls BIRDS. 



and oaks close to water. They are constant residents in the Willamette 

 Valley, Oregon. Its food is similar to that of the other members of this 

 g-enus, and, like them, seems to be fond of fish. 



Mr. A. W. Anthony writes me as follows, and his remarks evidently apply 

 to this race: "While living at Beaverton, Washington County, Oregon, I caught 

 a Screech Owl in a steel trap set for beaver in a ditch about 2 feet wide and 6 

 feet deep. The trap was not baited but placed fully 4 inches under water, and 

 the Owl managed to get both feet well into the jaws of the trap. The bird was 

 evidently after fish, as I have frequently seen ti-out in this ditch." 



The eggs are similar in shape to those of the other members of this genus. 

 A set of three eggs of this subspecies, taken by Mr. C. L. Keller, in Marion 

 County, Oregon, on May 8, 1891, from a cavity in an old Cottonwood tree, 31 

 feet from the ground, contained good sized embryos when found. Another, of 

 two eggs, taken in the same locality on July 13, 1883, from a cavity 20 feet 

 from the ground, in an oak tre e, were probably a second clutch. The average 

 measurement of these specimens, which are in the U. S. National Museum col- 

 lection, is 36.4 by 30.9 millimetres. 



131. Megascops flammeolus (Kaup). 



FLAMMULATED SCREECH OWL. 



Scops flammeola Kaup, Transactions Zoological Society London, iv, 1862, 326. 

 Megascops flammeolus Stejneger, Auk, 11, April, 1885, 184. 

 (B — , C 319, R 404, C 471, U 374.) 



Geographical, range: Highlands of Guatemala and Mexico, and northward to 

 Colorado and northern California. 



The little Flammulated Owl, one of the smallest of our Screech Owls, is a 

 resident of the elevated plateaus of Gruatemala and central Mexico, the south- 

 ern Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado, the mountain regions of Ari- 

 zona and New Mexico to northern California, where the late Capt. John Feilner, 

 U. S. Anny, an enthusiastic naturalist, obtained a single specimen, a young bird 

 of the year, near Fort Crook, August 23, 1860, which was evidently raised there. 



This little Owl is still one of the rarest birds in North American ornitho- 

 logical collections, and up to the year 1890 very little was known about its 

 breeding habits. The single Qgg obtained with the female parent from a Wood- 

 pecker's excavation in an old pine tree, by Mr. Charles A. Aiken, of Colorado 

 Springs, in Wet Mountain Valley, Colorado, June 15, 1875, and which is now 

 in the U. S. National Museum collection, remained unique, as far as known to 

 me, until the year 1890, when several of their nests and eggs were taken. Mr. 

 William G. Smith, of Loveland, Colorado, well known as a good ornithologist 

 and reliable collector, found three of their nests during that season, and has 

 given me the following description of them: "The first nest was taken on June 

 2, 1890, in Estes Park, Colorado, at an altitude of probably 10,000 feet. The 



