THE SBOKT-EARED OWL. 335 



1889. The nest was placed in a slight hollow surrounded by hunch grass, 

 and it consisted of a few scattered straws and feathers from the bird. 



According to Mr. W. H. Dall, U. S. Coast Survey, this species is resi- 

 dent and not uncommon in Unalaska, Alaska, and it is said to breed in 

 burrows in the ground, usually on the side of a steep bank. The hole is 

 horizontal and the inner end usually a little higher than the entrance and 

 lined with dry grass and feathers. Those examined by him did not exceed 

 2 feet in depth. 



On the Atlantic coast Mr. W. E. D. Scott found it breeding at Long Beach, 

 New Jersey, taking a set of seven partly incubated eggs on June 28, 1873, and 

 the National Museum collection contains a set of six taken by Mr. Thomas 

 Beesley, near Cape May, New Jersey, in 1860. 



It is gregarious at times, Dr. Elliott Coues observing a gathering of from 

 twenty to thirty on the Colorado River, near Mojave, Arizona, and I have 

 seen small parties of five or six, probably the old and young, along the 

 marshes of Malheur Lake in Oregon. 



Incubation probably lasts about three weeks, and ordinarily but a single 

 brood is raised. The eggs are usually from four to seven in number, rarely 

 .more, though if Indian and Eskimo testimony is to be relied on, they lay as 

 many as ten and even twelve, but this is scarcely probable. They are white 

 in color, with a very faint creamy tint perceptible in most of the specimens; 

 the shell is smooth, finely granulated, and not as lustrous as are the eggs of 

 the preceding species. In shape they vary from oval to elliptical ovate, and 

 a few are nearly equally pointed at each end. 



The average measurement of fifty-six eggs in the U. S. National Museum 

 collection is 39 by 31 millimetres, the largest egg measuring 42 by 32, the 

 smallest 37.5 by 29.5 millimetres. 



The type specimen, No. 13824 (PI. 12, Fig. 3), selected from a set of five 

 eggs, was taken June 30, 1865, by Mr. R. MacFarlane, near Anderson River 

 Fort, Arctic North America. 



114. Syrnium nebulosum (Forster). 



BAKRED OWL. 



Strix nebulosa Forster, Philosophical Transactions, xxn, 1772, 386. 

 Syrnium nebulosum Boie, Isis, 1828, 315. 



(B 54, C 323, E 397, C 476, U 368.) 



Geographical range: Eastern North America; north to the more southern 

 British provinces; south to Georgia and northern Texas; west to eastern Nebraska and 

 Kansas. 



The range of the Barred Owl, next to the Great Horned Owl the largest 

 of this family breeding within our borders, extends through that portion of the 

 United States east of the Mississippi Valley from Georgia northward to the 

 southern border of the Dominion of Canada south of latitude 50° N, where it 



