Cambridge, Mass.
1907
Nov. 21
  As I was writing in my study at the
Museum early this afternoon I heard a Blue Jay
screaming loudly and excitedly in the Garden. The next
instant Walter Deane called to me from his room to
say that he had just seen it in pursuit of a
large, brownish-colored bird which he thought was
a Flicker and which had found refuge in the box
in the elm in the Jungle where a pair of Flickers
nested a few summers ago. He said it seemed to fly
directly into the hole without alighting or even pausing
before disappearing. This, with the fact that when we
went out and tapped on the box with a pole nothing
showed itself, convinced me that the fugitive must
be a Screech Owl an inference positively confirmed,
an hour or so later, when an Owl of this species
apparently in grayish plumage, showed himself at the
hole. As we approached his face and crest, pointed
finely tapering "ears" were in full view but when we
were still thirty yards away he dropped back out
of sight as suddenly as a Jack-in-a-box. This
happened about 4 P.M. when the light was still strong
but the sky clouded over. We did not see the
bird again that day.
  When we first went out the Jay was fluttering
about the box in a state of the wildest excitement
screaming incessantly and some Golden crested Kinglets
in a neighboring tree were zee-zeeing not less continuously
as they always do when they sight a small owl of
any kind. The Jay was loath to leave and after
we had returned to Museum he came back to the
box and fluttered about it for sometime longer.