261 
ICTO. 
Scops asio. 
Middlesex County, Mass. 
(June 33) Brood of four young in the red plumage, still cover¬ 
ed v/ith down, but quite able to fly, sitting in a row on 
the branch of an apple tree with the female (also red) 
a fev/ feet off. Male (a gnay Owl) in the nest tree. 
The female on being wounded flew a short distance and 
dove directly into the hole v/hore the nest had been. 
1871. 
Peb, 5. 
1874. 
June 3, 
Pound a sign of these Ov/ls in and about an old Flick¬ 
er’s hole. 
Jessie Warren of West Newton has two broods of young. 
The parents of one were both red birds, and the three 
young also of the same color. In the other brood the 
four young are all gray while the mother is red. The 
male parent of this brood was not taken; the young al¬ 
though not fully fledged greedily tear up and devour 
small birds. 
1875. 
Apr. 17. 
26. 
Under an apple tree on the west side of the Pine 
Swamp, I found several pallets of this bird. A hole in 
the treeabove contained a Robin, the body unplucked and 
entire but the head eaten off, evidently recently as 
the ruptured muscles at the base of the nest were still 
soft and bloody. Under neighboring trees were more pel¬ 
lets but none of their cavities contained the Owl. 
Pound the nest of the Owl whose traces I noted on ' 
the 17th.^ It was in a natural cavity in an apple tree 
at some distance from the swamp and near a house' The 
female, a gray bird, was sitting on four eggs in which 
the embryos were just forming. There was not the loast 
trace of a nest the eggs simply lying on a bed of rotton 
chips, mingled with feathers plucked from the victims 
of the Ov/djs. The sitting bird when taken off her epos 
seemed perfectly stupid making no resistance with either 
hand 
without attempting to escape. The nest vms in a very 
filthy condition. In many holes in neighboring trees 
which were doubtless the resorts of the male, wore feath¬ 
ers of various birds, and in the nesting cavity itself 
I found Identifiable remains of some four or five species 
including Snow Buntings, Bluebirds and most numerously 
those of Robins. . ^ 
L6xir,Bton“®T®f extended search through an apple orchard in 
Lexington, I found signs of these birds in many places 
feathers of the Owls in and abo^t several 
likely-looking holes,. I neglected to mention in the 
notes made yesterday that there wore no pellets under 
the tree and only one in the surrounding orchard 
‘■“hhd under almost 
:^l 
