178 BIRDS 



large black eye patches and yellow eyes; upper parts 

 dusky brown, the feathers margined with yellow; under 

 parts whitish or buff, the breast broadly streaked, never 

 mottled, with brown, and underneath more finely and 

 sparingly streaked; tail barred with buff and dusky 

 bands of equal width. Bill and claws dusky blue black; 

 legs feathered with buff. 



Range — ^Nearly cosmopolitan; throughout North America, 

 and nesting from Virginia northward. 



Season — Chiefly a migratory visitor; April, November; 

 also a resident in many sections. 



Here is an owl that breaks through several family tra- 

 ditions, for it does not live in woods, neither does it con- 

 fine its hunting excursions to the dark hours; but, living in 

 the marshes or grassy meadows, it frequently flies abroad 

 by day, especially in cloudy weather, after two o'clock in 

 the afternoon, as well as at night. Another unconventional 

 trait it has: it makes its nest of hay and sticks on the 

 groimd instead of in hollow trees or upper parts of build- 

 ings; and one nest that contained six white eggs, discovered 

 in a lonely marsh where the bittern was the owl's nearest 

 neighbor, was in a tussock quite surroimded by water. 

 The bittern, that misanthropic recluse, springing into the 

 air, was off at once, dangUng its legs behind it; whereas the 

 marsh owl, as this is sometimes called, is not at all shy, and 

 simply stared and bUnked, with a half-human expression 

 of wonder on its face, until the intruder became too im- 

 pertinent and lifted it off its nest. Even then it did noth- 

 ing more spiteful than to sharply dick its bill as it circled 

 about just overhead. Yet there seems to be a popular 



