THE WESTERN HORNED OWL. 385 



Mr. W. Otto Emerson, of Haywards, California, found a nest of this Owl, 

 containing three young birds, on a sleeper under a raikoad bridge, and Lieut. 

 Robert C. Van Vliet, U. S. Army, tells me that he frequently saw these birds 

 flying about within the town limits of Santa F6, New Mexico, a pair occupying 

 the tower of the cathedral, and he thinks they nested there. 



Mr. Denis Gale says: "Each pair of these birds have their particular 

 range, and no amount of harassing or robbing them of their eggs two or 

 three times a year, will induce them to leave a locality once chosen. The 

 food supply, of course, is the chief consideration influencing their choice. In 

 some cases half a mile of creek bottom defines the limit of their preserve 

 or hunting ground, and occasionally it is larger, every square foot of which, in 

 time, becomes familiar by careful watching night and day. No doubt every 

 burrow and hiding place, from that of a mouse to a jack-rabbit, is known to 

 them. * * * A choice of location once made is never abandoned, unless 

 civilization blots out the cover or kills the birds." 



The Western Horned Owl is extremely abundant in favorable localities. 

 At Fort Custer, Montana, situated in the angle formed by the confluence of the 

 Big and Little Horn Rivers, I obtained not less than twenty-eight of these 

 Owls in the winter of 1884-'85, and at least a dozen others were killed which 

 I did not receive. All were shot within a radius of 6 miles of the post, among 

 the Cottonwood timber on these streams. Every specimen, old or young, was 

 excessively fat, showing that notwithstanding their numbers, they all readily 

 procured an abundance of food even in the severest winter weather. The 

 Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse appeared to have sufi"ered greatly from their 

 depredations, as fully one-half of the birds secured contained remains of these 

 in their crops. A few of the specimens obtained here were intermediate in 

 plumage between this race and the Arctic Horned Owl, probably migrants 

 from the north. 



In the southern parts of their range nidification begins occasionally in the 

 first part of January. Capt. B. F. Goss found a set of their eggs on the 8th of 

 that month. Usually it does not begin much before February 15, and lasts 

 until the middle of March. Climate seems to have little to do with the time of 

 nesting with these birds, as they nest sometimes fully as late in the semi- 

 tropical regions as they do much farther north. 



The Western Horned Owl is a persistent layer. Mr. Gale writes me 

 that he has taken three sets of eggs from the same pair of birds in the sea- 

 son of 1889 at intervals of about four weeks. The first set contained four 

 eggs, the second three, and the last two each, and the nesting site was changed 

 each time. Where they use open nests the site is likely to be changed each 

 season, but when a hollow tree or a hole in a cliff is chosen they usually 

 occupy the same from year to year, unless too often disturbed. The old 

 birds can generally be found in the vicinity of their breeding ground through- 

 out the year. Mr. Gale believes that these Owls do not breed until the 

 second year, and as a rule only a single brood is raised; but the fact that yoimg 

 26957— Bull. 1 25 



