THE OOLOGIST. 



21 



Nest of the Burrowing Owl. — So 

 many have been the inquiries concerning 

 the nesting of this bird and its peculiar hab- 

 its, that we present below a few interesting 

 notes by those who have seen and examined 

 the nesting places. The following we quote 

 from Dr. Coues : 



' ' I never undertook to unearth the nest 

 of a Burrowing Owl, but others have been 

 more zealous in the pursuit of knowledge 

 under difficulties. Dr. Cooper says that he 

 once dug two fresh eggs out of a burrow, 

 which he followed down for three feet, and 

 then traced five feet horizontally, at the end 

 of which he found an enlarged chamber, 

 where the eggs were deposited on a few 

 feathers. In his interesting note in the 

 American Naturalist^ Dr. C. S. Canfield 

 gives a more explicit account of the nesting : 

 ' I once took pains to dig out a nest of the 

 Athene cunicularia. I found that the 

 burrow was about four feet long, and the 

 nest was only about two feet from the sur- 

 face of the ground. The nest was made in 

 a cavity of the ground, of about a foot in 

 diameter, well filled with dry, soft horse- 

 dunjr, bits of an old blanket, and fur of a 

 coyote that I had killed a few days before. 

 One of the parent birds was on the nest, 

 and I captured it. It had no intention of 

 leaving the nest, even when entirely uncov- 

 ei'ed with the shovel and exposed to the open 

 air. It fought bravely with beak and 

 claws. I found seven young ones, perhaps 

 eight or ten days old, well covered with 

 down, but without any feathers. * * * 

 The material on which the young birds 

 rested was at least three inches deep. * * 

 There are very few birds that carry more 

 rubbish into the nest than the Athene,' and 

 even the Vultures are not much more filthy. 

 I am satisfied that the xi. curdcularia lays 

 a larger number of eggs than is attributed 

 to it in Dr. Brewer's book (four) . I have 

 frequently seen, late in the season, six, sev- 

 en, or eight young birds standing around 

 the mouth of a burrow, isolated from others 

 in such a manner that I could not suppose 

 that they belonged to two or more families.' 



' ' The same writer has some further re- 

 marks, so strongly corroborative of what 

 has preceded, that I will quote his words 

 again. Speaking of the hundreds, perhaps 

 thousands, of the birds he had seen in Cal- 

 ifornia, he continues : ' Where I have seen 

 them, they always live in the deserted or 

 unoccupied burrows of the ground squirrel 

 {jSpermophilus heecheyi). I came to the 

 conclusion that they were able to drive out 

 the tipermo2')hiles from their habitations, 

 but I am not certain of this. It is true 

 that there were, in that region,' a large num- 

 ber of unoccupied burrows wherever there 

 was a colony of Uperrnoj^hiles ; so that 

 there was no lack of unoccupied habitations 

 for the Owls to take possession of. * * ' " 



The above would go to establish the point 

 that the Burrowing Owl never excavates 

 its own burrow, but occupies those made 

 by the prairie dog and ground squirrel. 

 This is the point so often asked concerning 

 the nesting of this curious bird. Whether 

 it has been satisfactorily ascertained we are 

 unable to state. 



We are promised a very interesting ar- 

 ticle on this bird, which, with an illustra- 

 tion drawn by one of our best artists of 

 bird-life, we shall soon publish. 



Two instances of the breeding of the Red 

 Bird ( (Jardinalis virginianus) in Cen- 

 tral New York, have come under our no- 

 tice this year. Though there is nothing of. 

 particular importance in this fact, it might 

 be worth while to know whether the birds 

 in these instances were native or escaped 

 cage birds. The reason for the latter sup- 

 position is, because quite a number of these 

 birds have been taken in the past two years 

 most of whom bore marks of once having 

 been cagred. 



It might be a very advisable idea for 

 collectors to be more moderate in gathering 

 Terns' eggs. Collections are overrun with 

 those of the Common and Arctic Terns. 

 Eggs of the Black Tern would be desirable. 



