The Pygmy Owls 



Billy has to count them off on his toes twice to be sure they are all 

 there. Then they set out tor a walk, while mama stands and 

 watches them from the door. They learn to catch crickets, and they 

 watch the big saucy grasshoppers as they spring up into the air and 

 crack their heels together twice. Billy catches one and divides it 

 between two of the children. Urn! so good! And then they learn 

 to turn over stones and meadow-cakes to look for beetles. But just 

 then mother, on the lookout, cries, Quant, which means "Look out!" 

 She sees a man coming on horseback. She does not know it is the 

 bird-man who will not hurt her. Every owl chicken freezes, becom- 

 ing as motionless as a stone. Then quant quant, which means "Come 

 home," and every chick, obedient to the dot, turns and toddles 

 toward that yawning friendly hole. How it happens, I do not know, 

 but it is a fact that before the hole is reached a line has somehow been 

 formed, with the youngest and smallest in the lead, and the biggest, 

 whom we suppose to be the eldest sister, in the rear. Punctual to the 

 second, not a peep of protest, not a chick remaining, in they go. 

 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten! Big sister 

 plumps in last, then mother and father; and Billy's brood is safe. 



But suppose the danger had been real. Suppose it had been a 

 coyote instead of the bird-man. And suppose one of the owl babies 

 had hung back and said, "Oh, I don't want to go home yet." Well, 

 there would have been only nine little owlets to snuggle down in 

 Billy's nest. That's all. 



No. 221 



Pygmy Owl 



No. 221a California Pygmy Owl 



A. O. U. No. 379a. Glaucidium gnoma californicum Sclater. 



Synonym. — California Gnome Owl. 



Description. — Adult: Upperparts warm brown ("deep broccoli brown to light 

 bister or grayish snuff brown" — Ridgway), finely spotted with white or pale ochraceous 

 buff — the spots are smallest, most numerous, and circular on head; fewest or wanting 

 on upper back; larger, cordate or hastate on outer scapulars, wing-coverts and tertials; 

 and everywhere obscurely shadowed by dusky; rounded white spots on outer webs of 

 flight-feathers, ranging into bars; and tail crossed by seven ranks (counting concealed 

 basal and terminal portions) of double spots; a narrow cervical collar of black and 



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