The Screech Owl 179 



rodents. The value of his 800 bearing trees was not less than $2,000. In this case 

 would it not have been more economical for the owner to have encouraged Owls and other 

 so-called binis of prey, that live largely on mice and rai)bits, to remain on his premises, 

 even though a chicken might have to l)e sacrificed occasionally ? It is prol)al)ly a fact that 

 Screech Owls remain mated during life, and, as they are non-migratory, if they once be- 

 come attached to a locality, they are apt to remain there, unless they are iiarassed and 

 driven asvay or their home tree is destroyed, and they are compelled to seek another, in 

 which case they do not move any great distance. 



For this reason they are doubly of value to the agriculturist, as they are his helpers dur- 

 ing the entire year. Their prey, the mice, are yearly tenants, and the farmer who is wise 

 will give the Screech Owl on his acres a perpetual free lease. 



Another feature in the life-history of the Screech Owl, that makes it doubly valuable, 

 is that it is nocturnal in its habits and hunts for food at night when all the other birds are 

 at rest. It thus complements the day work of the rodent-eating Hawks, — Nature in her 

 wisdom thus providing a continuous check on the four-footed vermin of the ground. 



Although tiie Screech Owls are nocturnal by choice, yet they have no difficulty in see- 

 ing in the daytime, although they then seem stupid and are not at all alert and wide- 

 awake as they are after sundown. 



During the daytime they hide in holes in frees, or in some secluded place in the foli- 

 age, to escape observation. Should they be discovered they are apt to be mobbed by other 

 birds, especially Jays. This fact must have been well known to the ancients, for Aris- 

 totle recorded it over three centuries before the Christian Era, in the following words: 

 "The Noctuae, Cicumae and the rest, which cannot see by day, obtain their food by seek- 

 ing it at night: and yet they do not do this all night long, only at eventide and dawn. 

 They hunt, moreover, mice, lizards and scorpions, and small beasts of the like kind. 

 All other birds flock round the Noctua, or, as men say, ' admire,' and flying at it buffet 

 it. Wherefore this being its nature, fowlers catch with it many and different kinds of 

 ittle birds." 



The Owls are supposed by many superstitious people to be birds of bad omen ; tliis 

 probably arises in the case of the Screech Owl from its weird, tremulous, shivering, wail- 

 ing, whistling note. To the writer there is a singular and fascinating attraction in its 

 notes, which are heard in the dusk of early nightfall, especially when its shailowy form is 

 noiselessly flitting by like a huge night-flying moth, which can only be seen as it crosses a 

 background of fast-fading western light, the last faint beams of a sun far down below the 

 horizon. 



The homes of Owls may often be discovered from the pellets of undigested food, Ijones, 

 fur, etc., disgorged by the birds. 



While the life-history of the Screech Owl family is interesting, yet their economic status 

 is the important fact which needs wide publicity. All scientific writers and students of 

 the food habits of this species of Owl join in pronouncing it to be one of the most benefi- 

 cial and least harmful of all f)irds. In addition to the great number of rodents it destroys, 

 it also eats enormous quantities of noxious insects. In the First Annual Report of the 

 United States Entomological Commission (1877) it is stated: "The injury by the Rocky 

 Mountain locust to the agriculture, and, as a consequence, to the general welfare of the 

 States and Territories west of the Mississippi, has been so great during the years 1873-6 

 as to create a very general feeling among the people that steps should be taken by Con- 

 gress looking to a mitigation of an evil which had assumed national importance." On p. 

 119 of the report it substantiates the above statement by actual figures, showing that in the 

 four corn-growing states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, in 1874, the loss by 

 locusts was 142,942,800 bushels, with a money value, at 28 cents per bushel, of 

 $40,000,000. An examination of the stomach contents of eight Screech Owls (p. 42, 

 appendix II) taken at that time in Nebraska disclosed the fact that they had eaten just 



