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THE LITTLE OR ACADIAN OWL. 



H-Vltjla Acadica, Gmel. 



PLATE XXXIII.— Male and Female. 



This lively and beautiful little Owl is found in almost every portion of 

 the United States. I have observed it breeding in Louisiana, Kentucky, and 

 along our Eastern States, as far as Maine, where, however, it becomes scarce, 

 being, as it were, replaced by the Tengmalm Owl, which I have seen as far 

 south as Bangor, in Maine. It is rare in the lower parts of South Carolina, 

 where indeed my friend Bachman never observed it. 



The Little Owl is known in Massachusetts by the name of the "Saw- 

 whet," the sound of its love-notes bearing a great resemblance to the noise 

 produced by filing the teeth of a large saw. These notes, when coming, as 

 they frequently do, from the interior of a deep forest, produce a very pecu- 

 liar effect on the traveller, who, not being aware of their real nature, expects, 

 as he advances on his route, to meet with shelter under a saw-mill at no 

 great distance. Until I shot the bird in the act, I had myself been more 

 than once deceived in this manner. On one particular occasion, while walk- 

 ing near my saw-mill in Pennsylvania, to see that all was right there, I was 

 much astonished to hear these sounds issuing from the interior of the grist- 

 mill. The door having been locked, I had to go to my miller's house close 

 by, to inquire if any one was at work in it. He, however, informed me that 

 the sounds I had heard were merely the notes of what he called the Screech 

 Owl, whose nest was close by, in a hollow tree, deserted by the Wood Ducks, 

 a pair of which had been breeding there for several years in succession. 



I have been thus particular in relating the above circumstance, from a 

 desire to know if the European Little Owl (Strix passeri?ia) emits the same 

 curious sounds. The latter is said by several authors of eminence to lay 

 only two white eggs, while I know, from my own observation, that ours has 

 three, four, or five, and even sometimes six. The eggs are glossy-white, 

 and of a short elliptical form, approaching to globular. It often takes the 

 old nest of the Common Crow to breed in, and also lays in the hollows of 

 trees a few feet above the ground. A nest of our Little Owl, which I found 

 near the city of Natchez, was placed in the broken stump of a small decayed 

 tree, not more than four feet from the ground. I was attracted to it by the 

 snoring notes of the young, which sounded as if at a considerable elevation; 

 and I was so misled by them that, had not my dog raised himself to smell at 



