152 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA 
Tiiis owl, one of tlie largest, if not the largest in North America, is 
found in Pennsylvania only as a very rare and irregular straggler in 
winter. Twenty or more years ago a specimen was captured in Chester 
county in midwinter by H. B. Graves. About eight years ago Dr. I. F. 
Everhart, of Scranton, found one dead in the mountains in Lackawanna 
county. Mr. Geo. B. Sennett tells me one was found a few years ago in 
the smoke stack of a steamboat at Erie city. Geo. B. Perry, Susque¬ 
hanna county, and H. J. Roddy, Perry county, also mention this owl as 
a straggler. 
Genus NYCTALA Brehm. 
Nyctala acadica (Gmel.). 
Acadian Owl; Saw-whet Owl. 
Description ( Plate 87). 
“Small; wings long ; tail short; upper parts reddish-brown, tinged with olive ; 
head in front with fine lines of white, and on the neck behind, rump, and scapulars, 
with large, partially concealed spots of white ; face ashy-white ; throat white ; under 
parts ashy-white, with longitudinal stripes of pale reddish-brown ; under coverts of 
wings and tail white ; quills brown, with small spots of white on their outer edges, 
and large spots of the same on their inner webs ; tail brown, every feather with 
about three pairs of spots of white ; bill and claws dark ; irides yellow. 
Total length about to 8 inches; extent about 18 ; wing 5^ ; tail 2^ to 3 inches. 
Sexes nearly the same size and alike in colors.” — B. B. of N. A. 
Habitat. — North America at large ; breeding from Middle States northward. 
The Acadian is the smallest owl found in the United States east of 
the Mississippi river. Although apparently larger, it is in reality 
smaller, than our common robin. This pigmy mass of owl-life is, I sup¬ 
pose, the species which was regarded as not destructive to poultry and 
game, by the author of the “ Scalp Act,” when he introduced therein a 
clause exempting “The Arcadian Screech or Barn Owl.” From the fact, 
however, that the decapitated heads of pheasants,* nighthawks, 
chickens, cuckoos, shrikes, and doubtless other birds, were cremated and 
paid for as the heads of destructive, rapacious “hawks,” it is but reason¬ 
able to suppose that our little Acadian Owl, when found by the eager 
scalp hunter, was generally slain, and the bounty of fifty cents given 
“for the benefit of agriculture and for the protection of game.” 
The name Saw-whet is applied to this bird because, at times, its 
squeaky voice resembles the wlieting or filing of a saw. Owing to the 
small size of this owl, together with the fact that during the daytime it 
remains secreted in hollow trees, thick foliage or in dark and secluded 
*In December, 1886, Prof. S. F. Baird informed me that he had received for identification, from several 
counties in Pennsylvania, the heads of Pheasants (Bonasa umbellus). These heads were called by the 
parties sending them to Prof. Baird ‘ ‘ Hawk heads, ” and as such they had been presented for the fifty - 
cent bounty, which had been paid. Prof. Baird also examined some Pennsylvania ‘ ‘ wolf scalps, ” on 
which premiums had been given, and ascertained that the so-called “wolf scalps’’had been fashioned 
from pelts of the common Red Fox ( Vulpee fulvus). 
