182 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



Another, more red, also horned, repeated the same 

 warning sound, or apparently call to its young, about 

 the same distance off, in another direction, on an alder. 

 When they took to flight they made some noise with 

 their wings. With their short tails and squat figures 

 they looked very clumsy, all head and shoulders. Hear- 

 ing a fluttering under the alders, I drew near and found 

 a young owl, a third smaller than the old, all gray, 

 without obvious horns, only four or five feet distant. 

 It flitted along two rods, and I followed it. I saw at 

 least two or more young. All this was close by that 

 thick hemlock grove, and they perched on alders and 

 an apple tree in the thicket there. These birds kept 

 opening their eyes when I moved, as if to get clearer 

 sight of me. The young were very quick to notice any 

 motion of the old, and so betrayed their return by look- 

 ing in that direction when they returned, though I had 

 not heard it. Though they permitted me to come so near 

 with so much noise, as if bereft of half their senses, 

 they at [once] noticed the coming and going of the 

 old birds, even when I did not. There were four or five 

 owls in all. I have heard a somewhat similar note, 

 further off and louder, in the night. 



Dec. 26, 1860. Melvin sent to me yesterday a per- 

 fect Strix asio, or red owl of Wilson, — not at all 

 gray. This is now generally made the same with the 

 ncevia, but, while some consider the red the old, others 

 consider the red the young. This is, as Wilson says, a 

 bright " nut brown " like a hazelnut or dried hazel bur 

 (not hazel'). It is twenty-three inches in alar extent 

 by about eleven long. Feet extend one inch beyond 



