July, 1906 | 
THE BARN OWE AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE 
87 
examination of these pellets, found about the nest or under the roost, a scientist 
can get a perfect index to the character of the food that has been eaten. In addi- 
tion to this, one generally finds in the nest the remains of creatures upon which 
the young birds have been feeding. 
The owls as a family are the most beneficial of predaceous birds from the eco- 
nomic standpoint of the farmer. With few exceptions they are nocturnal. Their 
eyes and ears are remarkably developed and are keenest in the early hours of the 
night and morning. Many harmful rodents are most active in their search for food 
during the night, and the owls are the natural check for this multitude. The 
hawk hunts by day and the owl by night and the work of the one supplements 
that of the other. 
A pair of barn owls occu- 
pied one of the towers of the 
Smithsonian Institution at 
Washington. When the 
young were half grown, the 
iloor was strewn with pellets. 
An examination of two hun- 
dred of these showed a total 
of four hundred and fifty 
skulls. Four hundred and 
twelve of these were mice, 
twenty rats, twenty shrews, 
one mole and a vesper spar- 
row. 
A family of young owls 
will number from three to 
seven birds. It is incredible 
what an amount. of vermin a 
family of owls will consume. 
An old owl will capture as 
much or more food than a 
dozen cats in a night. The 
owlets are always hungry; 
they will eat their own 
weight in food every night 
and more if they could get it. 
A case is on record where a 
half grown owl was given all 
the mice it could eat. It 
swallowed eight in rapid suc- 
cession. The ninth followed 
all but the tail which for some time hung out of the bird’s mouth. The rapid di- 
gestion of the Raptores is shown by the fact that in three hours the little glutton 
was ready for a second meal and swallowed four additional mice. If this is the 
performance of a single bird, the effect that a whole nestful of owls would have on 
the vermin of a community is self-evident. 
I wondered at the changes in the owl faces as they grew older. When I first 
saw them in white down, I thought the face was that of a sheep, and then a 
monkey, and then I didn’t know just what it resembled. The third time we vis- 
ited the nest, each youngster had a face that surely looked like some old grand- 
PORTRAIT OF FULLY GROWN BARN OWL 
Copyright photo by hi. T. Bohlman and JVm. L. Finley 
