THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. erg 
During the breeding season the male owl seems to keep con- 
stant watch at the entrance of the hole, while his mate is attend- 
ing to her household duties inside. Sometimes, however, we 
find the pair sunning themselves together. When disturbed at 
such times. the female retreats underground, the male flying off 
as before stated. 
When digging to obtain the eggs, we almost always find the 
female and occasionally both birds, backed up at the extreme end 
of the burrow. They do not show fight, and when pulled out 
by the hand offer little resistance, sometimes trying to bite, but 
seem incapable of doing much harm. The nest is made almost 
wholly of dry horse manure. The entire burrow is also lined 
with it and a quantity of the same material is strewn about the ea- 
trance. This is our guide when looking for eggs, for it is wholly 
useless to dig out holes that do not show this sign that house- 
keeping has actually commenced. 
Looking therefore to ‘‘surface indications,’ 
we can ‘‘strike it rich,” we need waste no labor in digging 
’ which tell us when 
empty burrows, unless, maybe, we find more young owls than we 
care to see. In such a case it is not necessary to dig far. If the 
young are a few days old we can hear them as soon as we com- 
mence work. They make a peculiar hissing noise and it is easy 
to imagine that the hole is full of snakes. Another sure indica- 
tion of young birds is the amount of food provided for them, and 
it is scattered anywhere from entrance to end of burrow. This 
stock of provisions is somewhat varied, and I have found frogs, 
horned toads, centipedes, scorpions, grasshoppers, four or five 
kinds of mice, parts of snakes of several species, kangaroo rats, 
an assortment of lizards, etc. ; but in digging out something like 
one hundred holes have only found fragments of birds once or 
twice, so that they must be of great benefit to the farmer and de- 
serve his best protection. 
In southern California the large Gray Ground Squirrel (.S'‘er- 
mophilus beechevy) is very abundant and the owls take possession 
of their abandoned burrows. More rarely they occupy the de- 
serted hole of the badger and fox. Most writers state that the 
eggs are found from six to eight feet from the mouth of the bur- 
row. This is not my experience, as I-have rarely found them 
without digging eight or nine feet, and all the way from that to 
