The Screech Owls 



originated with some lonely woodchopper who was suffering with the 

 toothache. Certainly it is a gross exaggeration, and unfair to the bird. 

 During the brief courting season, when alone the notes are heard, the male 

 is a most devoted serenader ; and his song consists of breathless repetitions 

 of a single syllable, whoop or kwook, vibrant and penetrating, but neither 

 untender nor unpleasing. In the ardor of midnight under a full moon, 

 this suitor whoops it up at the rate of about three whoops in two seconds, 

 and this pace he maintains with the unfailing regularity of a clock. But 

 to prevent his lady love from going to sleep, he changes the key occasion- 

 ally. In quality this Nyctaline note is not unlike the more delicate 

 utterance of the Pygmy Owl {Glaucidium sp.), the sipdolk(ng) note. In- 

 deed, I supposed these two notes proceeded from the same bird until Mr. 

 Allan Brooks set me right. There can be no confusion, however, as be- 

 tween the incessant cadences of the Saw- whet and the xylophone "song" 

 of Glaucidium. No sweeter moonlight memory comes back to the writer 

 than that of a night spent in camp among the silvered candelabra firs 

 which border a certain prairie south of Tacoma. The moonlight was so 

 palpable a joy that the sleeper must rouse ever and again to taste its 

 fulness; and as often as one stirred on his bed of mingled fern and "sweet- 

 in-death," he heard the sweet, unfailing clamor of the Saw-whet, as he 

 pressed his amorous suit. And ever and again, like a mocking chorus, 

 came the tiny ghostly tinkling rondel of his Pygmy rival — Abiunt amores! 



No. 216 



Screech Owl 



No. 216a McFarlane's Screech Owl 



A. O. U. No. 373h. Otus asio macfarlanei (Brewster). 



Description. — "Similar in coloration to 0. a. bendirei but much larger" (Ridg- 

 way). "Larger size, greater extent of blackish markings on the contour feathers 

 generally, and the browner tone of color dorsally, serve to distinguish it from any 

 specimen of the more southern California races" (Grinnell). 



Range of O. a. macfarlanei. — The semi-arid Upper Sonoran zone of the "Colum- 

 bian trough" from southern British Columbia to northeastern California. 



Occurrence in California. — Record based upon a single specimen, #16027, 

 U. S. Nat. Mus., a male taken by John Feilner at Fort Crook in extreme northeastern 

 Shasta County. Surmised, however, to be the resident bird of the Modoc region. 



Authorities. — Brewster (intergrade between bendirei and kennicotti); Bull. 

 Nutt. Orn. Club., vol. vii., 1882, p. 32 (Ft. Crook; see Grinnell, postea); Ridgway, 

 Birds N. and M. Am., part vi., 1914, p. 697 (n. e. Calif.) ; Grinnell, Condor, vol. xxi., 

 1919, p. 173 (status in Calif.). 



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