108 THE BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 



diating feathers meeting in a high projecting ridge, arch- 

 ing from the bill upwards; between these lies a thick tuft 

 of bright tawny feathers that are scarcely seen unless the 

 ridges be separated; face, white, surrounded by a border 

 of narrow, thickset, velvety feathers, of a reddish cream 

 color at the tip, pure silvery white below and finely shaft- 

 ed with black; the whole upper parts finely mottled with 

 black and gray, each feather of the back and large wing 

 feathers ending in an oblong spot of white, bounded by 

 black, and all the feathers broadly bordered and suffused 

 with tawny buff; sides of the neck, pale yellow ochre, 

 thinly sprinkled with touches of dusky; long wing feath- 

 ers barred with dusky brown; tail, two inches shorter 

 than the tips of the wings, pale yellowish, crossed with 

 five bars of brown and thickly dotted with the same; 

 whole lower parts, white, thinly interspersed with small 

 round spots of blackish; legs, long, thinly covered with 

 short white down, nearly to the feet, which are of a dirty 

 white; toes, thinly clad with white hairs. The ridge or 

 shoulder of the wings is tinged with bright orange brown. 

 The aged bird is more white ; in some the spots of black 

 on the breast are missing and the color below is a pale 

 yellow, in others a pure white. 



The nests are found in barns, towers, belfries, steeples 

 and holes in ti'ees and banks. Mating begins late in Feb- 

 uary or early in March. The eggs are from five to nine 

 in number, of a dirty white, and one and three-fourths by 

 one and one-third inches in size. 



The birds are distributed throughout the southern 

 United States and the southern parts of New Jersey, Penn- 

 sylvania and New York. 



Their cry is a cr-r-ree, cr-r-ree, cr-r-ree, or a quaek, 

 quaek, quaek. 



Government reports of the examination of 7 stomachs 

 showed that 1 contained poultry, 1 other birds, 4 mice, 

 1 other mammal, 3 insects; examination of 29 stomachs 



