THE BIRDS OF NKW JERSEY. 113 



feathered to the claws; extremities of the toes and claws, 

 white, pale bluish, ending in black; biU, two-thirds of an 

 inch in length, a pale bluish horn color; eyes, vivid yel- 

 low; head, horned or eared, each horn tuft consisting of 

 nine or ten feathers, of a tawny red, shafted with black. 

 In the gray phase of the bird the upper parts are gener- 

 ally brownish gray, streaked with black and mottled with 

 buff; the under parts are white, streaked and irregularly 

 barred with black, and banded with brown. In the 

 young the entire plumage is barred with grayish, brown 

 and white. 



The nest is generally built in the hollow of a tree — an 

 old apple tree preferred — and not over ten feet from the 

 ground, occasionally in a dove cote, but never in branches 

 of trees, nor does the bird make use of the nests of other 

 birds; the nest is a rude affair, made of sticks and leaves, 

 incompletely lined with a few feathers. Mating begins 

 about the middle of April. The eggs are from four to six 

 in number, almost spherical, rough surfaced, of a dirty 

 white, and one and a half by one and a quarter inches in 

 size. 



The birds breed and are distributed over the whole of 

 the eastern part of the United States from Canada to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



Their cry is shay, shay, shay, at night a tremulous 

 wailing whistle. 



The food of this bird is largely insectivorous, but they 

 will also take quail and young chickens and are very fond 

 of the English Sparrow. Government reports of the ex- 

 amination of 94 stomachs showed that 1 contained poul- 

 try, 20 other birds, 41 mice, 1 other mammal, 1 frog, 35 

 insects, 3 crawfish, 1 spider, 1 indeterminate matter and 

 7 were empty. Eeports of the examination of 255 stom- 

 achs showed that 1 contained poultry, 38 other birds, 91 

 mice, 11 other mammals, 4 frogs, 100 insects, 2 lizards, 1 

 fish, 2 scorpions, 2 earthworms and 43 were empty. 



