ORNITHOLOGIST 
— A N I) — 
OOLOGIST. 
$1.00 per 
ADDUm. 
Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 
Established, March, 1875. 
Single Copy, 
10 Cents. 
VOL. VII. 
NORWICH, CONN., MARCH, 1882. 
NO. 13. 
American Barn Owl. 
Aluco flarnnieus americanus (Aud) Hiclgw. 
In tbe vicinity of Santa Paula, Califor¬ 
nia, three hrmdred and twenty-five miles 
down the coast from San Francisco, the 
Barn Owl is by far the most abundant rep¬ 
resentative of its family—there being per¬ 
haps as many individuals of this species 
as of all the others there represented, com¬ 
bined. My experience with it is confined 
to observations made during a residence of 
two years in Ventm-a county, California, 
and occasional visits into the edge of Los 
Angelos and other adjoining counties. 
This owl is resident in Southern Cali¬ 
fornia, being somewhat gregarious in Fall 
and Winter, during which seasons they 
frequent, in day time, the dense foliage of 
the Live Oaks which abound in the lesser 
canons and fiinge the lower slopes of the 
foothills. On one occasion I drove more 
than fifty of these owls from a clump of 
oaks in Canada de Largo, and I have often 
seen from eight to twelve dozing quietly in 
one tree. The cross-beams under bridges 
form a favorite resort for them. Between 
Santa Paula and San Buenaventura, a dis¬ 
tance of sixteen miles, there are bridges 
over as many as six harancas, or “ gullies,” 
as they are called here east of the Rockies. 
These barancas vary from twenty to sixty 
feet wide and from ten to twenty-five feet 
deep, with perpendicular walls or banks on 
either side. These barancas are a very 
common thing in California, and are formed 
in the rainy season by the great streams of 
water that come rushing down the moun¬ 
tain sides. 
In passing over this road, I have often 
taken the trouble to look under these 
bridges, and I hardly ever failed to find 
from two to six Barn Owls sitting on the 
cross-timbers, or on projecting portions of 
the walls. Great numbers of them are 
found during the day amid the dense foli¬ 
age of the Pepper-trees,—so extensively 
iised in Southern California for wind 
breaks; and the groves of Willows along 
the Santa Clara River and near its mouth 
form very suitable quarters for them diir- 
ing the day. I have foimd perhaps half a 
dozen dozing in the hollows of trees, while, 
during the dry season, more may be seen 
occupying holes in the banks of the ba¬ 
rancas, or in the almost vertical cliffs that 
form the walls of some canons in the 
mountains of this part of the State. 
This species seemed to be almost exclu¬ 
sively nocturnal in its habits, dozing the 
day away in the resorts above named, at 
w'hich time it is not easily disturbed, but 
will retain its position, eying you in a 
sleepy, indolent way, until you approach 
within a few feet of it when it flies awk¬ 
wardly to another tree near by, or to a dif¬ 
ferent hole in the baranca. I never noticed 
them out searching for food before twilight, 
and not often before eight to nine o’clock 
at night. Their food consists, principally, 
of the gopher {Thotnoniys talpoides hulhi- 
vorus) and the Californian “ Ground Squir¬ 
rel,” {Spermophihts gratmuurus heecheyi), 
both of which are so destnictive to grow¬ 
ing crops and fruit trees on the Pacific 
coast. Other small mammals, particular¬ 
ly rabbits, birds and insects go to make up 
its bill of fare. By the farmers of Cali- 
