The Arizona Elf Owl 
his mastery of this woodland cry, and he used it as a key to unlock our 
local treasure boxes of Glaucidium gnoma. Not only will the Owls them¬ 
selves respond to the cry and hurry forward, astonishment and perplexity 
written in every line, but all the song-birds rally also. It is the master 
call of the woods, as effective in California as the Screech Owl quaver is 
in the East. 
No. 222 
Arizona Elf Owl 
A. O. U. No. 381. Micropallas whitneyi whitneyi (J. G. Cooper). 
Description. —Face highly varied, the disc scheme much modified; loosened disc 
feathers below and behind eye only, tawny; the white component of the rim present as 
four isolated solid segments, or emaciated quadrants; a patch before and over each eye, 
and a distal submaxillary patch white; the submaxillary patches flanked first by dusky 
and then by cinnamon-rufous, the latter continuous across throat; upperparts grayish 
brown (hair-brown), finely spotted on head, sides of neck, and back with tawny; the 
edge of wing white, and large white spots on wing-coverts, inner tertials, outer edges of 
quills, and outer borders of scapulars, the last confluent in transverse stripe; underparts 
white, varied by dusky and cinnamon-rufous, the dusky prevailing on sides of breast and 
sides, elsewhere as fine barring, vermiculation, or clouding, the rufous broadly central in 
interrupted patchy pattern. Bill pale horn-color; iris lemon-yellow. A rare “brown 
phase” is also recognized. Young birds lack the tawny spotting of crown and the 
ochraceo-rufous element is otherwise reduced. Length 127-146.1 (5.00-5.75); wing no 
(4.33); tail 49 (1.93); culmen from cere 9 (.35). Female slightly smaller. 
Recognition Marks. —The tiniest of owls—warbler size, but of course appearing 
larger; white in four patches on face; cinnamon-rufous of throat and underparts a rather 
striking feature. 
Nesting.— Eggs: 2 to 4; subspherical, white; deposited in old woodpecker holes, 
usually in giant cactus. Av. of 16 specimens in M. C. O. coll.: 26.4 x 23.1 (1.04 x .91); 
index 87.5. Some specimens exhibit an index of 92. 
Range of Micropallas whitneyi. —The desert portions of extreme southeastern 
California, east to southern Texas and south through Lower California and in Mexico 
to Puebla. 
Range of M. w. whitneyi. —Desert portions of southeastern California, Arizona, 
southwestern New Mexico, and Sonora. 
Occurrence in California. —Resident in small patches of Sahuaro cactus found 
in valley of the Colorado River. 
Authorities. — Ridgway, Condor, vol. iv., 1902, p. 18 (Kern Co.; see Grinnell, 
Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 11, 1915, p. 74); H. Brown, Condor, vol. vi., 1904, p. 45 (Colo. 
Valley, Calif, side; breeding); Grinnell, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. xii., 1914, p. 129 
(Colo. Valley); Brewster, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, vol. viii., 1883, p. 27 (s. Ariz.; desc. 
young, nest, eggs, etc.). 
A FEATHERED something at the bottom of a hole! Not a very 
inspiring thought, you say? No; not unless you happen to have been 
there. Not unless you have “the bug.” Yet it is for this that the 
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