150 THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BARRED OWL. 



Syrnium nebulosum. 



[Plate 22— Adult.] 



The Barred Owl inhabits eastern Korth America, ranging from Nova 

 Scotia southward to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to Manitoba, 

 Dakota, Kansas, and Texas. Three geographical races inhabit, re- 

 spectively, the southern United States from Florida to Texas (Syrnium 

 n. alleni), eastern Mexico (Syrnium n. sartorii), and Central America 

 (Syrnium n.fulvescens). The species is resident throughout its range 

 except in the extreme northern part, from which it migrates more or 

 less every fall and winter. 



Eelating to the food of this species, Audubon gives the following: 

 "The Barred Owl is a great destroyer of poultry, particularly of chickens 

 when half grown. It also secures mice, young hares, rabbits, and many 

 species of small birds, but is especially fond of a kind of frog of a brown 

 color very common in the woods of Louisiana. I have heard it asserted 

 that this bird catches fish." (Ornith Biography, vol. i, p. 244.) 



Nuttall gives the following information as to the food : "Their food is 

 principally rabbits, squirrels, grouse, quails, rats, mice, and frogs. 

 From necessity as well as choice they not unfrequently appear around 

 the farmhouse and garden in quest of the poultry, particularly young 

 chickens." (Land Birds, 1832, p. 134.) 



"Mr. Downes observed them to feed on hares, spruce and ruffed 

 grouse, and other birds in Nova Scotia" (Hist. N. A. Birds, vol. in, p. 36). 



Mr. H. Nehrling says : "In Texas where the hens, turkeys, etc., roost 

 on trees, this owl is very destructive. They do not kill old poultry, 

 but like half- grown chickens, and soon depopulate a whole poultry 

 yard." (Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club, vol. vn, p. 172.) 



Dr. Wheaton, in his report on the birds of Ohio, 1882, gives a sum- 

 mary of its food as follows: "It sometimes visits chicken roosts and 

 causes great devastation, but its ordinary food consists of squirrels, 

 rats, mice, and small birds " (p. 412). 



To all this testimony, which could be increased by the addition of 

 many other notes attesting the destructiveness of the species to poultry 

 and game, the investigations of the writer are in direct variance. Of 

 the 109 stomachs examined four only contained the remains of poultry, 

 and in one the trace of a game bird were found, 



Dr. William C. Avery, of Greensboro, Ala., one of our valued cor- 

 respondents, writes: " One evening about sunset while I was hunting, 

 a Barred Owl pitched upon a wounded Bob-white which I had just 

 shot." This incident recalls the interesting question of the part played 

 by birds of prey in destroying sickly or wounded game. The following 

 from Prof. Baird to Mr. J. W. Shorton, which was published in the 



