56 THE CONDOR | Vol. XXI 
ket; her own kitten was then taken home in the same manner. This annoying 
act of mine was repeated frequently in the presence of visitors to show to them 
the eat’s apparent affection and greater care for the orphan. 
An acquaintance caused an article to appear in a local newspaper calling 
attention to ‘‘Bert Ingersoll’s Zoo’’. Curiosity brought many people to see 
my squirrels and kittens feeding at the same ‘‘lunch counter’’. My lovable 
oid cat once surprised me by retrieving, uninjured, a small garter snake that 
had escaped to a neighbor’s garden while being transferred to a new reptile 
cage. 
The rearing of some young screech owls, captured as they were about 
strong enough to leave a snug hollow in an elm, proved amusing in several 
ways. One, in reddish phase of plumage, was a favorite and entertained us by 
taking from the hand large angleworms as offered, swallowing them alive. Clos- 
ing beak and eyes, the bird would simulate sleep and remain motionless. In the 
course of forty or fifty seconds the struggling worms would slowly emerge 
from between the mandibles, shp out an inch or two, and swing loosely around 
in space until feathers were touched. -Violent efforts to escape in their diree- 
tion always roused the owl to action. Reswallowing these squirming tidbits, 
she would assume her previous attitude and be ready for a repetition of the 
performance. It was such a nauseating sight that one spectator said she 
could hardly keep her own mouth closed! Angleworms seeming to be a favor- 
ite food of this screech owl, it is reasonable to suppose that it was an enjoyable 
sensation to have its palate tickied by them. 
My adult screech owl would not eat raw or cooked vegetable matter in any 
form; but the two immature birds reared by me would eagerly swallow young 
leaves and tender shoots of certain plants. A preference was shown for those 
of the grapevine. Later, advanced growth making the grape unacceptable to 
them, and having difficulty in finding a palatable substitute that would be 
eaten from my hand, I placed an assortment of green stuff in their cage, that 
the kind needed might be selected during the night and eaten by them. As my ~ 
pets gradually lost their craving for this line of food, and stopped eating it al- 
togetner after being in captivity a month or two, I am inclined to believe screech 
owls require a mixed diet of animal and vegetable matter during an early pe- 
riod of life. 
The reading of Samuels’ ‘‘Birds of New England and Adjacent States’’, 
a treasured 1871 Christmas gift, had much to do in awakening my interest in 
ornithology and oology. Starting a collection of bird skins with an albino 
robin, accidentally killed by coming in contact with a baseball, did not lead to 
the taking of albinos only. Birds’ eggs were first taken without nests and 
kept, a pair of a kind, in a spool cabinet. I had never seen a well arranged or ~ 
large collection of eggs. But observing, after a lttle field work, that eggs — 
looked more attractive in original nests than in a sawdust-lined drawer or box, 
I decided that my collection should have one nest, with complete set of eggs 
displayed in it, of every obtainable species, and also a set of each species of 
eggs to be kept by itself. This resolution was made in 1875. In June of that 
year I collected a nest and four eggs of the Vesper Sparrow at Ithaca, New 
York. This initial set is still in my collection, and owing to painstaking care, — 
this and all my earlier collected specimens are now in as fine a state of preser- | 
vation as when first placed in my cabinets. 
My field work has mainly been carried on in twenty-four counties of Cali- 
