The Burrowing Owl 
in the back, then breaks the creature’s neck by sharp quick blows of the 
beak. Soberly regarding the special claims of the hay rancher and grain- 
grower, I should say that, save the Barn Owl only, the Burrowing Owl is 
his best ally among birds, and that he who wantonly destroys one should 
be classed with the man who tramples a held of grain or sets hre to a 
haystack. 
Whenever food is plenty and the ground inviting, Burrowing Owls are 
likely to form little colonies, ten or a dozen pairs being found in a stretch of 
two or three acres. They appear to be peaceably disposed toward each 
other, and mates are notably faithful. Upon the advent of spring, or say 
in the early days of March, one may hear at evening a soft and mellow love 
song, coo coo-oo, coo coo-oo, which the male repeats by the hour. This 
sound, which our English friends declare reminds them strikingly of the 
old world cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus Linn.), requires to be carefully distin¬ 
guished from that of our own Road-runner ( Geococcyx calif or nianus). It 
is perhaps more sprightly and thinner in quality than that of the love-lorn 
chaparral cock, but the resemblance is very close. Besides this engaging 
love note, the Burrowing Owl indulges the strongly contrasting clattering 
cries already referred to. This excited clacking serves not only to exorcise 
invaders in time of danger, but to voice various emotions, notably those 
which arise at early evening in pursuit of the chase. I have even suspect¬ 
ed that it was a sort of hunting song, a due notice to all imprudent moles, 
akin to the awful serenade with which the Mountain Lion terrorizes his 
prey. Be this as it may, the reverberating clack — clack—clack clack clack, 
sounding from held to held, serves to identify the twilight hours as 
Speotyto' s own. 
The Burrowing Owl enjoys an almost unbroken distribution through¬ 
out the treeless or lightly timbered sections of the State, from the base of 
the Sierras down to the ocean’s edge. Indeed, it does more than this, for 
it is one of the characteristic birds of the Santa Barbara Islands and those 
of the coast of Lower California. In such situations it is impossible to 
believe that the lesser sea-fowl—petrels and auklets—do not furnish their 
quota of this bird’s fare. In 1911 I found a single Owl on the flat below 
the siren on the S. E. Farallon, a very darkling bird, soiled, perhaps, by 
much searching of cinder heaps. I was told that several pairs had 
formerly bred there, but that they had been shot off because of their 
persecution of the smaller migrants. On the other hand, Brown, who 
found them abundant on Guadalupe Island, examined a nest which con¬ 
tained, as provision for five youngsters, only eighteen freshly killed mice, 
besides remains of countless others. Burrowing Owls do not thrive upon 
the desert, nor at Lower Sonoran levels generally, although they may be 
found under exceptional circumstances. Although civilization and at- 
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