128 OWLS. 



length, and its sides and heWj are })arred, not streaked, 



witli blackish. It does not frequent marshes, but lives in 



swam^jy thickets or dense woods, and 



Long-eare w , niakes its nest in the abandoned home 



Asio wilsuiUJinus. . , -r . 



ot a Crow, Hawk, or squirrel. It is a 

 permanent resident from at least Massachusetts south- 

 ward. 



Of our four " horned " Owls, the Long-eared has rela- 

 tively the largest and most conspicuous " ear-tufts," the 

 Short-eared the smallest, while in the Great Horned Owl 

 and Screech Owl the ears are of al>out the same propor- 

 tionate size. The Great Horned Owl, however, is found 

 only in tlie wilder, more heavily wooded parts of the coun- 

 try, and is hardly to be included in a list of our common 

 birds. It is the largest of our resident Owls, the males 

 measuring twenty-two inches in length, while its " ear- 

 tufts " are nearly two inches long. 



The Screech Owl is douljtless the commonest of our 

 Owls, as it is also the most familiar, nesting about and 



Screech Owl, ^^^"^ ™ o^^' l^o^ses when some favor- 

 Mujasa^jis iisio. able hole offers. It has little to say for 

 Plate XX. itself until its family of four to six 



fuzzy Owlets is safely launched into the world ; then in 

 July or August, we may hear its melancholy voice — not 

 a "screech," but a tremulous, wailing whistle. It has 

 several other notes difficult to describe, and when alarmed 

 defiantly snaps its bill. 



Some Screech Owls are gray, others bright reddish 

 bro«'n, and these extremes are connected by specimens 

 intermediate in color. This difference in color is not due 

 to age, sex, or season, and is termed dichromatism, or 

 the presence in the same sjiecies of two phases of color. 

 The same phenomenon is shown liy other birds, notably 

 certain Herons, and among mammals by the gray squir- 

 rel, some individuals of which are black, The observa- 



