140 THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



LONG-EARED OWL. 



Asio wilsonianus. 

 [Plate 20— Adult.] 



The Long-eared Owl inhabits the whole of temperate North America 

 ranging south to the table lands of Mexico. In the North it is plentiful 

 in the Saskatchewan and Hudson Bay districts, and Eichardson ob- 

 served it as far as the sixty-first parallel and thought it extended to 

 the limit of trees. Along the Atlantic coast it is found from Nova 

 Scotia to Florida, and is more or less common in the intervening coun- 

 try westward to the Pacific. Mr. Henshaw thinks it is the most com- 

 mon species in Utah, and Mr. Eidgway found it in almost every willow 

 copse from the coast of California eastward into Nevada. There are no 

 records from central and northern Alaska, though probably it occurs 

 commonly in the southern part of the Territory. A representative 

 species is found throughout the temperate parts of Europe and Asia, 

 as well as northern Africa. 



The Long-eared Owl is one of our most beneficial species, destroying 

 vast numbers of injurious rodents and seldom touching insectivorous 

 birds. The birds killed by it are mostly seed-eating species, which do 

 not benefit the agriculturist to any great extent. As this Owl is readily 

 destroyed, it is the one that suffers most when short-sighted legislators 

 enact laws for the destruction of birds of prey. It will be seen from 

 the following testimony that it is both cruel and pernicious to molest a 

 bird so valuable and innocent as the one under consideration. 



Audubon says: "It preys chiefly on quadrupeds of the genus Arvic- 

 ola and in summer destroys many beetles." (Ornith. Biography, vol. 

 IV, p. 573.) 



Nuttall remarks: "Besides mice and rats this species also preys on 

 field mice, moles and beetles." (Land Birds, 1832, p. 131.) 



Mr. H. W. Henshaw says: "Their food consists almost exclusively 

 of field mice, of which they kill vast numbers, a fact which should 

 earn them the protection of the farmer." (Eeport of the Chief of Engi- 

 neers, U. S. A., 1877, p. 1311.) 



Mr. Townend Glover says: "The stomach of one specimen of the 

 Long-eared Owl in the collection contained the skulls and bones of at 

 least 8 field mice, and therefore, when about barns and granaries, these 

 birds must be very useful." (IT. S. Agl. Eept., 1865, p. 37.) 



Capt. Charles E. Bendire, writing from Camp Harney, Oregon, 

 states: "Their food consists princi])ally of mice and the smaller 

 rodents." (Ornithologist and Oologist, vol. VI, 1882, p. 82.) 



Dr. B. H. Warren gives the following: "I have examined the stom- 

 achs of twenty-three Long-eared Owls and found that twenty-two of 

 them had fed only on mice; the other examination made of a speci- 

 men takeu late in the spring showed some beetles and portions of a 

 small bird." (Birds of Pennsylvania, 1888, p. 107.) 



