Aggressive Screech Owls. — Mrs. John W. Ames of Cambridge has 
kindly given me permission to publish the following account of an inter- 
esting experience which she had with some Screech Owls at Concord, 
Massachusetts, in June, 1906. I give it in her own words as follows: — 
“I came to Concord to the Manse on June 14. A day or two after my 
arrival I walked down the avenue after supper and as I stood near the 
gate an owl hooted and flew close by my head, and then, after a minute, 
flew back again. I thought nothing of it, until, a few evenings later, 
my cook came in much frightened and said she had been hit in the head 
by a bat. She had been about where I was when the owl flew past me, 
and her description of the sound it made seemed to make it more probable 
that it was an owl than a bat. A few days later she was struck again 
as she walked down the avenue, and both times the skin was broken in 
several places on the side of her head, and the blow was severe enough 
to be painful for some days. We soon heard from all our neighbors stories 
of how, as they passed our gate, the owl flew out and struck them, and 
almost every evening we could hear some signal of distress from the 
unwary passers-by, such as, ‘Look out for the bird!’ or ‘What is it? Is 
it a bat? ’ One man, I was told, had his eyelids seriously cut. 
“One evening as I sat in the house I heard what seemed to be an un- 
usual disturbance among the owls, and I wondered if the young ones 
might be learning to fly. So I walked down about half way to the gate, 
with a friend, taking the precaution to put hoods over our heads. We 
stood there for a few minutes, listening, and then, as it was hot, I dropped 
back my hood. In an instant, with an angry cry, the owl struck me 
on the side of the forehead, leaving three or four scratches. I had no 
time to see the bird, but some days later I had a fairly good view of it, 
as it flew over me to an elm tree on the hill opposite our house. It seemed 
to me then to have the appearance and usual size of the Screech Owls 
which we see often about here. 
“ One evening, about June 25, a number of people came up, protected 
by baseball masks or hoods, to investigate the whereabouts of the owl’s 
nest, which appeared to be in the clump of trees along the wall at the 
foot of the hill, and directly opposite our gate. . Two boys in the party 
threw stones at the trees to start out the owls, and the bird showed off 
as usual, striking several persons in the head. But the next morning, 
Mr. Ferguson, who keeps a tub of water for his cow under the trees where 
the owls seemed to live, brought in the body of an owl which had appar- 
ently been drowned, as it was found in the tub. Nobody knows any- 
thing of the manner of its death and the boys, whom I questioned, said 
they did not, to their knowledge, hit any of the owls. But I could not 
help feeling that the poor bird had been struck by one of their stones, 
and fallen, stunned, into the water. Since then we have heard nothing 
of the owls except what appeared to be an unwonted crying of the little 
ones for the next week or two, and I supposed that they were hungry, 
for, though they could fly, they probably were not yet trained to find 
their own food.” 
I have some further notes concerning this family of owls from Mrs. 
Alfred Worcester of Waltham who, in company with several friends, 
visited the Manse on the evening of June 26. The party had provided 
themselves with fencing masks, which proved useful, as will appear from 
her account of the experience, which is as follows: — 
•Bite* T aur £ (/ Co 
bird found and taken ^TstesTark Tu^^Tg^ ^ female 
the State Agricultural College, Fort Collins ’ Col ’ TT “ ColIectlon at 
female taken from same vicinfty June IS ° ^ ° ne nest with 
of the Hon. J. E. Thayer, Lancaster, Mass ^ D ° W “ the Collection 
Auk ae, j a a -iyo$ 
