THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. ZI 
THE SCREECH OWL. 
Megascops <Asio. 
BY L. OfLEY PINDAR, HICKMAN, KY. 
Just before dark, May 31, 1886, when I was coming home from an 
ornithological ramble, I saw three young but full grown Screech Owls 
sitting in a row on a fallen limb of a tree. 
As I approached they flew; but although the sun was down they 
seemed blinded by the light. One flew towards me and I caught 
him. I tied him to the fence for that night, and the next morning 
made a perch to which I fastened him with a very light steel chain. 
I kept this owl till the morning of June 7 of the same year, when 
on going to feed him, I found him missing and the chain broken. I 
often wondered how he could have broken the chain ; but the finding 
the chain in the yard not long ago has led me to believe that my pet 
was killed and carried off by some prowling cat. In the short time I 
kept him, he did not get at all tame, snapping his bill and_ hissing 
whenever I approached, aithough he ate greedily, his food consisting 
of raw beefsteak. 
April, 25, 1888, I found a nest which at the time I could not reach, 
In the afternoon of the same day, a friend and I visited the nest, car- 
rying with us a ladder and a hatchet. Of course the ladder would 
not reach to the nest, but we knocked off the two bottom rounds ; then 
I went to a fence not far distant, knocked off a plank and drew the 
nails. With these nails we fastened the rounds to the tree, above the 
ladder, and by their help my friend soon reached the nest and se- 
cured the four young owls it contained. Then he came down, knock- 
ing off the ladder rounds from the tree as he did so. On reaching 
the ground, he put the rcunds back on the ladder, while I nailed the 
plank back on the fence. 
Then we examined our prizes.. They were all perfectly white and 
their eyes were closed. Two of them were a little larger than a 
chicken in the down and the other two smaller, one of them being 
considerably smaller than the rest. The cere of the two largest was 
bluish and that of the others white. 
The nest consisted of a few leaves and twigs, in a natural cavity 18 
