THR CONDOR 
Vol. XIII 
og'noniies and the feeling tliat we liad done the best we could, under the circumstances, 
to preserve the record of an unusual set of conditions. The Great Horned Owls had 
iwoved to be, without much doubt, the fiercest of all the l)irds of prey. In one 
further resj^iect, unfortunately, our experiences were in contrast to those of Mr. 
Finle>- and Mr. Bohlman. We found it im]K)ssible, b>' an\' means at our command 
to secure satisfactory- negatives of the adult birds.* We were unable to take them 
at distances of less than thirty feet and in every case they so blended with their 
background of gray bark, or gray l)ark and ixatches of snow, as not to l)e worth 
while. We regretted our inability to try the effect of a blind to operate from, but 
the mechanical difficulties in the way of such an attem]it demanded more time for 
their solution than we had to give. We therefore gave our attention to the nest 
and contents, or rather as much attention as the old birds would allow us to give. 
As the adults were necessarily much under observation it is hoped that a record of 
their conduct may add some interest to the present article. 
The beautiful deciduous forest, stretching for miles along the north bluffs of 
the Cedar River to the west of Mt. Wn'uon, had l)y 1890 been reduced to various 
detached groves of from ten to a hundred or more acres each in extent. About 
February of this latter year I was hunting through one of the larger of these 
I'^g-. 2. THE OWLS’ XESTIXG TIME; FROM TOWX THE TIMBER TR.A.CT AXD ENVIRON- 
MENT ARE SEEN IN I>.\NOR.\M IC VIEW 
groves which, if one struck straight across the fields, was only a mile and a half 
from town. I remember watching the short, uneasy flights of a Great Horned 
Owl, Init without locating his mate. I also rememlier talking with Mr. McFarland, 
a sturdy Scotchman who has occupied his homestead just across the road from the 
owls’ hunting grounds since the early fifties, and learning that “big hoot-owls 
have always been in that timber.” Soon after, the great oaks and hard ma]fies of 
the eastern two-thirds of the grove fell under the ax, leaving to the west only a 
twenty-five acre remnant and, in the cut-over area, only some old white elms and a 
few young ma]des and lindens. Among these latter the forest soil soon gave way to a 
thick carjiet of lilue grass and so what had been heavy forest was gradually trans- 
formed into a rather oj-ien and still very beautiful timber i>asture. It was taken for 
granted that the owls had moved elsewhere and for a series of years what had been 
famous “Sugar Grove” w-as practically forgotten. From 1901 on, however, my way 
several times led across the pasture and into the timber tract and I was surpri.sed 
to note there each time the jiresence of Great Horned Owls. Once or twice I even 
* Tlie portrait of tlie adult owl shown herewitli (j). 7) was taken .several years ago from a fine specimen 
brouglit in to the Cornell College 1)a)logic'al laboratory. The picture was imide by a student of zoology, who left the 
negative as property of the college. 
