strigidjE. 83 



browner tints of colour : neither is it uncommon on the Table Land of Mexico. 

 Specimens that were sent to John Taylor, Esq., F.R.S., from the vicinity of Real 

 del Monte, have been compared, by Mr. Swainson, with those procured in the 

 northern regions. They presented no other difference than what might be ex- 

 pected in regard to the colour of individuals from localities so widely different. 

 In those from Mexico the rufous tints of the plumage were more general and much 

 brighter*. The Virginian Horned Owl is found in almost every quarter of the 

 United States, and occurs in all parts of the fur-countries where the timber is 

 of a large size. Its loud and full nocturnal cry, issuing from the gloomy recesses 

 of the forest, bears some resemblance to the human voice uttered in a hollow 

 sepulchral tone, and has been frequently productive of alarm to the traveller, of 

 which an instance occurred within my own knowledge. A party of Scottish High- 

 landers, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, happened, in a winter 

 journey, to encamp after nightfall in a dense clump of trees, whose dark tops 

 and lofty stems, the growth of centuries, gave a solemnity to the scene that 

 strongly tended to excite the superstitious feelings of the Highlanders. The 

 effect was heightened by the discovery of a tomb, which, with a natural taste often 

 exhibited by the Indians, had been placed in this secluded spot. Our travellers 

 having finished their supper, were trimming their fire preparatory to retiring to 

 rest, when the slow and dismal notes of the Horned Owl fell on the ear with a 

 startling nearness. None of them being acquainted with the sound, they at once 

 concluded that so unearthly a voice must be the moaning of the spirit of the 

 departed, whose repose they supposed they had disturbed, by inadvertently making 

 a fire of some of the wood of which his tomb had been constructed. They 

 passed a tedious night of fear, and with the first dawn of day hastily quitted the 

 ill-omened spot. 



The Virginian Horned Owl preys on the American hare, Hudson's Bay squirrel, 

 mice, wood-grouse, &c. It builds its nest of sticks on the top of a lofty tree, 

 hatches in March, and its young, two or three in number, are generally fully 

 fledged in June. Its eggs are white. — R. 



In the size and structure of the ears, in the imperfect facial disk, in the short- 

 ness of the tarsi, and in the relative proportions of the claws, there is a close 

 resemblance between this bird and Strix nyctea. The first quill feather is shorter 

 than the fifth, but is nearer to it than to the sixth in length ; the second and fourth 



* Lewis and Clark state, that they saw the " Large Hooting Owl," to the westward of the Rocky Mountains, only 

 on the Kooskooskee ; and that it was of the same size and form with the Owl of the United States, though its colours, 

 particularly the reddish-brown, seemed deeper and brighter. 



M 2 



