Sep., 1901 I 
THE CONDOR 
and if any entered the cage to feed up- 
on the leavings of what the owls were 
fed, they were probably pounced upon 
and consumed instanter. Illustrating 
the pouncing act, when the owls were 
very hungry and I threw a morsel of 
food of familiar variety into the cage, 
an owl would drop out of the keg and 
onto the “prey” in less time than the 
force of gravity allows. Generally the 
other two birds waited a longer or short- 
er interval after the first one alighted, 
just as the first one at times was more 
or less eager. Often I would have to 
move away a few feet before the first 
owl would come out of the keg where 
they remained all day. They were fed 
upon raw meat, dead poultry and even 
dead cats and generally had an over- 
abundance of food before them. Wheth- 
er stale food was bad for them or not is 
a doubt in my mind. 
Two of the owls seemed to be of one 
sex because one bird kept in a cage by 
itself and the other two were always to- 
gether. On Feb. 12, 1899 I heard the 
two birds chuckling and “talking” to 
each other, and remembering the pair 
that nested in 1888 on my third-story 
balcony had acted in this manner over 
their eggs, I entered the cage and found 
one egg in the keg occupied by the two 
birds and both birds in the keg. 
Knowing it requires about two weeks 
to produce a set, they were not dis- 
turbed, but on the morning of the 19th 
T found a dead owl but had no 
chance to determine if it was the un- 
mated one. By the 26th the}’- all died 
and the first two dead ones were partly 
eaten by their survivor, although suffici- 
ent food was at hand. On this day a 
second egg was found in the keg. Both 
eggs were fresh and show no variation 
when compared with a series from wild 
relations. 
As to the owls’ sudden demise I can 
only conjecture that the sameness of 
food constantly may have hastened the 
end, and that the lack of exercise had 
hardly any influence upon birds under 
a year old. The last bird was a female 
1 15 
and poor in plumage. The shaft feathers 
were in good order and those of the back 
were fairly abundant, while the frill 
about the face was rather scant and the 
feathers thence down along the under 
parts were not numerous enough to 
make a good specimen. 
The bones and carcasses and the com- 
mentably small number of regurgitated 
pellets were raked out and hauled 
away and the cage converted into a 
chicken coop. The hens now lay eggs 
in the nail kegs but the monkey-faces 
of the aboriginal owners no longer peer 
over the rims in response to my foot- 
■steps. I always regretted that these 
owls were so unmanageable or T should 
have turned them loose to prey upon 
the rats infesting the chicken yard. A 
Barn Owl does more good in destroying 
rodents than five good cats. 
There are one or more pairs of Barn 
Owls about the town of Alameda and 
where they nest has always been a 
mystery to me. On calm nights they 
are often heard overhead “clicking” and 
chuckling, and I have detected four 
notes of this species the other two being 
hisses. The owls I had in captivity 
never sounded the “clicking” notes, 
which may be likened to the sound of a 
slow-moving fishing reel. My regret is 
that I did not take more time to study 
the habits, especially the food influence 
upon captives. Mr. H. R. Taylor has 
had numerous species of raptores in his 
“raptory,” including a Barn Owl, but it 
had only a Horned Owl for a mate and 
did not produce any eggs; neither did 
the Western Redtails.the Golden Eagle, 
the Duck Hawks, nor the White- 
tailed Kites. 
Sets of Barn Owl’s eggs are found 
earlier in certain years than in others. 
In 1899 my birds began Feb. 12, and 
from several pairs of wild birds six 
fresh eggs were taken from one pair on 
April 27, and in the nest from which 
my captive birds were taken were three 
eggs on April 19 as the two earliest 
records. In 1900 the first eggs were: 
March 24, six eggs, incubation fresh to 
