The Long-eared Owl 



that low crooning note, tender and mellow, and, above all, piano, as it 

 was repeated simply and monotonously at intervals of four or five seconds 

 all night long. The same note is used, also, to admonish the babes or to 

 encourage them before the presence of that dread monster, man. 



Taken in San Luis Obispo County 



THE SKIRT DANCE 

 THE MENACE AT ITS UTMOST HEIGHT 



Photo by the Author 



Then, besides the cat-fight noises, already mentioned, and which 

 constitute a separate cataclysm of sound, there is the regular note of 

 disapproval, a sort of groaning execration used chiefly by the male, 

 Morach moraaaoow, werek werek wraaow, wreek wraaa — all very "flat" 

 and very emphatic. 



A fourth note is so unusual, or at least so little understood, as to 

 have escaped general comment. 1 In May, 1907, when our party was 

 camped on the Walla Walla River, in Washington, I first made its ac- 

 quaintance. I was seated at the time in a willow tree, at a height of 

 twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, beside a nest of young Long-eared 

 Owls, one of a line of four nests which I had been watching for several 



1 See the author's article in point. Condor. Vol. XVI., March, 1014. 



IO84 



