GREAT CINEREOUS OWL. 365 
and does not frequent the barren grounds, like the Snowy Owl, nor is 
it so often met with in broad day light as the Hawk Owl, but hunts 
principally when the sun is low; indeed, it is only at such times, when 
the recesses of the woods are deeply shadowed, that the American hare 
and the murine animals, on which the Cinereous Owl chiefly preys, 
come forth to feed. On the 23d of May I discovered a nest of this 
Owl, built on the top of a lofty balsam popiar, of sticks, and lined with 
feathers. It contained three young, which were covered with a whit- 
ish down. We got them by felling the tree, which was remarkably 
thick ; and whilst this operation was going on, the two parent birds 
flew in circles round the objects of their cares, keeping, however, so 
high in the air as to be out of gunshot; they did not appear to be daz- 
zled by the light. The young ones were kept alive for two months, 
when they made their escape. They had the habit, common also to 
other Owls, of throwing themselves back, and making a loud snapping 
noise with their bills, when any one entered the room in which they 
were kept.” 
Srrrx cinerea, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 291.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. i. p. 58.— 
Richards. and Swains. Fauna Bor.-Amer. vol. ii. p. 77. 
Adult Female. Plate CCCLI. 
Bill short, stout, broader than high at the base, its dorsal outline 
convex to the end of the cere, which is covered with stiffish linear fea- 
thers having their barbs separated, the ridge very broad, the sides 
sloping and nearly flat, the tip compressed, decurved, acute; lower 
mandible small, with the angle long and wide, the dorsal line convex, 
the edges sharp, the tip narrow ; the gape-line straight, at the end de- 
curved. Nostrils large, elliptical; eyes large, but proportionally smaller 
than in most other Owls. 
The body is slender, anteriorly broad, but seems large and full on 
account of the great mass of plumage ; the neck short; the head ex- 
tremely large. Feet rather short; the tarsi very short, and feathered ; 
the toes very short and feathered, there being only two or three bare 
scutella at their extremity. Claws slightly curved, long, slender, com- 
pressed, tapering to an extremely narrow point. 
Plumage very full, soft, and downy ; the feathers generally oblong. 
Those on the face linear, stiffish, with loose barbs, and disposed in two 
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