Stoddard, on Birds of Southern Wisconsin 
75 
fifteen feet up a small cedar. The Long-eared Owl is a regular 
but by no means common breeder in this section. The behavior 
of this particular female was so unusual that a short descrip- 
tion may prove of interest. 
When first discovered this bird paid no attention to kicks 
or shakings at the tree’s base and only left her nest when I 
reached her level in another sapling a yard away, then reluct- 
antly, with ruffled feathers and snapping beak. She was now 
completely carried away with wrath and excitement, attempt- 
ing to return to her nest, then alighting momentarily on the 
dead limbs of a nearby oak, swelling to twice her natural size, 
and her eyes fairly blazing. All the time she was uttering the 
loud “yows” and low, throaty growls such as precede a fight 
between angry tom cats. The similarity of tone was so great 
that it seemed impossible that the sounds issued from the throat 
of a bird. This performance was kept up for fifteen or twenty 
minutes, the bird frequently approaching within three feet. 
Finally I retired and studied her from a distance with binoc- 
ulars. Her fury gradually subsided, though she trembled and 
shook and jumped* at imaginary pounds, being evidently in a 
highly nervous .^tate. ' * ’ *- 
Friends with a camera the following day found her less ex- 
citable, and not so inclined to approach closely. Later in the 
week, when Dr. W. D. Richardson made a special trip to in- 
terview her, thoroughly equipped for taking pictures, she ab- 
solutely refused to perform, though using her remarkable vocal 
powers to the fullest. Unfortunately this nest was broken up, 
presumably by boys, so we had no further opportunities to study 
her interesting behavior. The male was shy at all times, giv- 
ing cat calls from a safe distance. 
Phlcjcotomus jrileatiis abieticola (Northern 1 bleated Wood- 
pecker). — Certainly has not decreased and has probably in- 
creased slightly in the river timber in the last eight years. On 
the fine bright evening of April 17, with the last of the snow 
on the ground from the terrible blizzard of the previous twen- 
ty-four hours, the rolling tattoos of these fine birds and their 
smaller kin, and the calls of the Red-bellied Woodpeckers par- 
ticularly, were the predominating sounds of the river timber, 
followed as darkness fell, by the equally characteristic notes 
of the numerous Barred Owls. 
A nest of the pileated was found April 11, the female ap- 
pearing at her door about twenty feet up a dead soft maple 
