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THE BARN OWL. 



Strix Flammea, Linn. 



PLATE CLXXI. Male and Female. 



Not a single individual of the numerous persons who have described 

 the birds of the United States, seems to have had opportunities of study- 

 ing the habits of this beautiful Owl, and all that I find related respecting 

 it is completely at variance with my observations. In describing the 

 manners of this bird, I shall therefore use all due caution, although at 

 the same time I shall not be too anxious to obtain credit in this, more 

 than in some other matters, for which I have patiently borne the contra- 

 dictions of the ignorant. The following extracts from my journals I 

 hope will prove interesting. 



iS*^ Atigustine, East Florida, 8t/i November 1832. — Mr Simmons, the 

 Keeper of the Fort, whom I had known at Henderson in Kentucky, 

 having informed me that some boys had taken five young Barn Owls from 

 a hole in one of the chimneys, I went with a ladder to see if I could pro- 

 cure some more. After much search I found only a single egg, which 

 had been recently laid. It was placed on the bare stone of the wall, sur- 

 rounded by fragments of small quadrupeds of various kinds. During 

 our search I found a great number of the disgorged pellets of the Owl, 

 among which some were almost fresh. They contained portions of skulls 

 and bones of small quadrupeds unknown to me. I also found the entire 

 skeleton of one of these Owls in excellent condition, and observing a 

 curious bony crest-like expansion on the skull from the base of the cere 

 above to that of the lower mandible, elevated nearly a quarter of an inch 

 from the solid part of the skull, and forming a curve like a horse-shoe, 

 I made an outline of it. On speaking to the officers of the garrison re- 

 specting this species of Owl, Lieutenant Constantine Smith, a most 

 amiable and intelligent officer of our army, informed me, that, in the 

 months of July and August of that year, these birds bred more abun- 

 dantly than at the date above stated. Other persons also assured me 

 that, like the House Pigeon, the Barn Owl breeds at all seasons of the 

 year in that part of the country. The statement was farther corroborated 

 by Mr Lee Williams, a gentleman formerly attached to the topographi- 



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