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Volume VI 1 1 
July-August 1906 
Number 4- 
The Barn Owl and Its Economic Value 
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BV WIIJJAM Iy. FINERY 
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HERMAN T. BOHLMAN 
T HERE is not a tumble-down barn in the country that does not shelter good 
material tor a naturalist’s notebook. Take it all in all, the oldest shacks are 
the most productive. If there is a hole and a snug corner, some wren or 
bluebird has likely climbed in and built a home. If it be near town, some English 
sparrow has perhaps been living there all winter, and at the first indication of 
spring, has begun carrying in grass and sticks. Or, if the barn is real shaky and 
leaky, it may furnish a home for an owl. 
The barn owl (Strix pratincola) is not hard to please when he needs a nesting 
place. He takes the steeple of a church, an old hollow sycamore. along the creek 
or a cave in the mountain. 1 know of one pair that has lived for years in the 
tower of a court house. The town clock just below the nest must have been an- 
noying at first during their day-sleep, but it was likely taken as a necessary dis- 
turbance, as we take the clang and rumble of the street-cars under our windows 
at night. 
Years ago our nearest neighbor got a pair of pigeons, sawed two holes up in the 
corner of his barn and nailed up a soap box for them. The pigeons disappeared one 
day, and the next spring a pair of barn owls moved in. That was seven or eight 
years ago, but the old dusty box in the gable is still rented to the same pair. I 
have no doubt the tenants will remain as long as the barn lasts. 
Our neighbor says his barn is worn out but resembles Mr. Burroughs’ apple 
tree, which was not much good for apples but always bore a good crop of birds. 
The owl home is a valuable asset of the barn. The owner knows something of 
owls as well as fruit trees, for no other barn about the neighborhood shelters such 
a valuable family of birds, and he guards them as closely as he guards his cherries. 
Now the barn owl is a queer looking tenant. No one is particularly fond of 
an owl. More than that, his actions are against him. It’s natural that we haven’t 
much sympathy for a fellow who is up and sneaking around all night, and sleep- 
ing thru the day. There is always some suspicion attached to a night-prowler, 
