Saw -whet Homes 



57 



On the wings of a howling wind, across the mile-wide flood, at Pem- 

 bina, on April 13, 1 heard the fluting of another Saw-whet. I found the 

 cavity, an open hollow, inhabited by this bird, later; but nothing more. 

 During 1899, no signs of the Saw- whet were vouchsafed me. 



In 1900, some ten miles east of Hallock, while looking critically for the 

 nest of a located pair of Hooded Mergansers, I found a kiln -dried elm stub, 

 on a sort of island, well secluded, on the South Fork. This large stub con- 

 tained a Flicker hole, some sixteen feet up. 

 Herefrom, at a slight rap, appeared a Saw- 

 whet. Returning, down -stream, at dusk, 

 about a mile above this point, I suddenly 

 heard a Saw-whet's song. When very 

 near the spot whence the sound proceeded, 

 I heard the doubled -time note ringing out, 

 as if the bird were in motion ; and then 

 instantly saw the male bird sweep down, 

 from a stub -top, with a long downward 

 and upward curve; and perch near by. 

 The sound he made was strangely like the 

 distant fire -warning of a steam whistle. 

 The female seemed away at the moment, 

 but before I was within six feet of the 

 Flicker hole that marked her home, she 

 darted by me, and into the hole. I could 

 not dislodge her. The date of these two 

 findings was May 14. 



Three days later, I opened the first of 

 these two nests. The j^oung were about 

 three - fourths grown. They bore no 

 down, to speak of, but many pin-feathers. There were three of the young 

 birds. The mother allowed me' to take her in hand, her only protest being 

 the snapping of her beak. There were but few pellets at the base of the 

 nest-tree; while the nest -hollow contained no rubbish, but only the young, 

 the putrescent body of a gravid meadow-mouse, a Loring's red -backed 

 mouse, and the tail of a jumping mouse. On May 29, these young were 

 in full feather. While photographing them I could not but note the fur- 

 tive manner of two of the young birds; this amounting, at times, almost 

 to the appearance of the feigning of death. The parents were not seen, 

 and the young had left the nest before June 5. 



On the 14th of June, I opened the second nest. The female kept the 

 cavity persistently, returning several times while I was yet in the tree. 

 The nest -cavity was some twelve feet up, in the dead top of a still -living 

 elm. The cavity contained squirrel-nest material, mingled with a few 



SAW-WHET AT NEST-HOLE 



