BARRED OWL. 
133 
short flights, and when sitting and looking sharply round, 
it erects the short ear-like tufts of feathers on the head, 
which are at other times scarcely visible. Like all other 
migrating birds, roving indifferently over the country in 
quest of food alone, they have sometimes been seen in 
considerable numbers together ; Bewick even remarks, 
that 28 of them had been counted at once in a turnip- 
field in England. They are also numerous in Holland 
in the months of September and October, and in all 
countries are serviceable for the destruction they make 
among house and field mice, their only food Although 
they usually breed in high ground, they have also been 
observed in Europe to nest in marshes, in the middle of 
the high herbage, a situation chosen both for safety and 
solitude. 
The length of this species is from 13 to 15 inches (the latter the 
length of Wilson’s bird, whose extent was 3 feet 4 inches). The 
head small. Tail ochreous, with brown bands and tipped with white. 
Beneath isabella yellow, with longitudinal spots of blackish brown. 
Bill black. Feet and toes feathered. Iris of a bright yellow. 
f f. With the head destitute of ear-like tufts. 
BARRED OWL. 
( Strix nebulosa , Lin. Wilson, iv. p. 61. pi. 33. fig. 2. Philad. Mu- 
seum, No. 464.) 
Spec. Charact. — Greyish-brown with transverse whitish spots ; 
beneath whitish, neck and breast with transverse bars, the belly 
and vent with longitudinal stripes of brown ; irids brown ; bill 
yellow ; the tail extending considerably beyond the tips of the 
wings. — Female with the scapulars of a dark brown, and the 
wings more spotted with white. — The young have the tints 
deeper ; and the bill horn-colored. 
This species inhabits the northern regions of both the 
old and new continent, but with this difference, as in the 
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