290 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. VIII, No. 5, 
these seem scarcely sufficient to warrant the separation of the 
species, at least without more exact knowledge as to the limit of 
variation in this characteristic than I have at the present time. 
The parasite must be quite rare as I have frequently secured 
other forms of parasites from bats, and would certainly have 
noted these if they had been common. Since the title of this 
paper was forwarded I have receievd a paper from Professor 
A. M. Banta on the fauna of Mayfield Cave in which he mentions 
the occurrence of fleas in connection with the bats of that cave, 
but he does not refer them to any particular genus or species. 
Doubtless they belong to this genus and their specific deter¬ 
mination would be a matter of interest. 
Note on the American Barn Owl. 
James S. Hine. 
The barn owl appears to be a rather common bird on the 
Ohio State University grounds, but on account of its nocturnal 
habits and quiet disposition it is not often seen. Several speci¬ 
mens have been sent in from different parts of the state, indicat¬ 
ing that the species is at home in other sections besides Columbus. 
Last fall, near the first of November it was observed that a 
nest of the barn owl was located in a cavity in one of the large 
sycamores in the held near the Biological Building. During the 
early part of each night the young birds made a great deal of 
noise, in their way, about the nest and the old ones were seen occa¬ 
sionally leaving and returning. About the 10th of the same 
month two of the young were observed on the ground near the 
nesting tree, but, although they were quite well feathered they 
could not fly sufficiently well to get back into the nest and so lost 
their lives. The flight feathers were well out and the birds were 
just at the stage when they gave a fine exhibition of the pushing 
out of the nest down by the more substantial body covering. 
The season of nesting is one of the more interesting points in 
the matter, and if we consider Audubon’s calculations as a guide 
the eggs must have been deposited sometime in x\ugust, perhaps 
near the middle of that month. As practically all of our birds 
are through nesting at this season, it is difficult to arrive at the 
point of considering this the regular nesting time of the species 
in question in this section. There is in the museum of the uni¬ 
versity a set of eggs of the barn owl labelled Santa Paula, Cali¬ 
fornia, March 27th. 
Some of the students and myself in looking over the ground 
beneath the tree, picked up a number of the cast-up pellets 
which contained many jaw bones of the common meadow mouse 
and so far as we could judge this mammal furnished much of the 
food of the owls. 
