BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



109 



movements. Having remained silent and still for about ten minutes, 

 I saw her hop toward the nest, and soon felt assured she had resumed 

 her task." 



L. M. Turner, the Arctic explorer, in his u Contributions to the Nat- 

 ural History of Alaska" says : " Among the natives of the Yukon 

 District the liver of this bird is used as a love-philter. The liver is 

 dried and reduced to a powder, and placed, unknown to the person to 

 whom the philter is to be administered, in some food. On eating the 

 food the desired affection is supposed to make itself evident. I knew 

 of an incident where a native endeavored, by this means, to regain 

 the affection of his wife. The mother-in-law had more potency than 

 dried Owl-liver, and as she controlled her daughter the philter was as 

 naught. It is administered indifferently, by man or woman, and is 

 frequently used by the Eskimo." 



FOOD. 



Nuttall says : " Its food is almost exclusively mice, for which it 

 watches, seated on a stump, with all the vigilance of a cat, listening 

 attentively to the low squeak of its prey, to which it is so much alive 

 as to be sometimes brought in sight by imitating the sound." In the 

 gorged pellets of this species examined by Audubon, he found the 

 remains of bones of small quadrupeds, mixed with hair, and remains 

 of various beetles. 



GENUS SYRNIUM. SAVIGNY. 

 368. Syrnium nebulosum (FORST.). 



Barred Owl. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Head large, without ear-tufts: tail rather long ; upper parts light ashy-brown, fre- 

 quently tinged with dull-yellow, with transverse narrow bands of white, most nu- 

 merous on the head and neck behind, broader on the back ; breast with transverse 

 bands of brown and white ; abdomen ashy-white, with longitudinal stripes of brown ; 

 tarsi and toes ashy-white, tinged with fulvous, general!}* without spots, but fre- 

 quently mottled and handed w*ith dark-brown : quills brown, with six or seven 



