176 THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mains of this noble game bird. Domesticated pigeons sometimes seem 

 to be particularly agreeable to the Owl's taste and the neighboring 

 dove cotes suffer correspondingly. 



The rabbit undoubtedly stands at the head of the list of the mammals 

 most often fed upon by this Owl. In fact its great love for the flesh 

 of rabbits is one of this Owl's redeeming qualities. In some parts of the 

 West, where rabbits are so numerous that it is next to impossible to bring 

 to maturity any large proportion of the crops, this Owl feeds on this 

 destructive rodent almost to the exclusion of other food. The examina- 

 tion of a number of stomachs revealed the fact that even in the East, 

 where rabbits are not so abundant, their remains constitute a fairly 

 large proportion of the contents. The writer is of the belief that where 

 rabbits are comparatively abundant the species under consideration 

 rarely molests j)oultry, and is a prime factor in destroying these destruc- 

 tive rodents. 



Dr. W. S. Strode, in an article on 'The Food of the Owls' in the 

 American Naturalist for January, 1889, states that the principal food 

 of this Owl in the Spoon River country, Illinois, is small rodents, chiefly 

 the gray rabbit. In seven nests examined the remains of at least a 

 dozen rabbits were found. 



Gophers, or more correctly speaking, spermophiles or ground squir- 

 rels, which furnish food for so many kinds of rapacious birds and mam- 

 mals in the West, must afford a never-failing supply of food for this 

 Owl in some regions. There is little direct testimony on the subject,- 

 but the great fondness this bird has for the arboreal squirrels in the 

 East justifies this conclusion. 



The Great Horned Owl has been often credited with being an expert 

 ratter. The following extract from a letter from O. E. Mies to Charles 

 Dury, of Cincinnati, furnishes very interesting and detailed informa- 

 tion on the subject: "For many years I have personally known the 

 value of our large Horned Owl as a < ratter,' and will cite one in- 

 stance in particular as proof. About eight years ago one of my men 

 discovered a pair of owlets of the large-horned variety in an old 

 sycamore stub near my stables on my farm, and concluded to capture 

 them alive. With some risk to himself he succeeded in securing them, 

 but not without a regular fight with the old ones, who gave him a few 

 wounds. In the nest where he captured the young owls he noticed 

 several full-grown Norway rats, with their skulls opened and the brain 

 removed. On descending to the ground he also noticed the bodies of 

 many rats around the tree, and out of curiosity counted them, and 

 found the bodies of one hundred and thirteen rats, most of them full 

 grown. They all appeared to simply have had their skulls opened 

 and the brains removed: and, from their undecayed appearance, must 

 all have been captured within the previous week or ten days." ( Journal 

 Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist,, vol. viii, April, 1885, p. 66.) 



Among the mammals whose remains are less often found among the 



