HORNED OWLS, ETC.: PYGMY OWL 
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September 3, 1906 (Bailey); Pinyon Mountains near Acoma, October 3; and a few 
days later in the neighboring Largo Canyon (Bailey). [Light miles west of Cloud- 
croft at 7,000 feet, one was taken September 2, 1916 (Ligon).] It was noted in the 
Gila National Forest, from 7,000 to 8,000 feet, August 31 to September 6, 1908 
(Birdseye); in the Manzano Mountains, at 8,000 feet, October, 1903 (Gaut); and 
heard in the Mogollon Mountains, up to 10,000 feet, October 21-31, 1908 (Goldman). 
One was heard at a lower altitude than usual at 5,800 feet, in the Animas Mountains, 
August 6,1908 (Bailey), while the type was taken at about the same altitude Decem¬ 
ber 25, and probably was a bird that had wandered down in the winter from its 
summer home in the neighboring mountains. The line from the Sacramento 
Mountains to the Sangre de Cristos represents the eastern edge of the known ninge 
of the species in New Mexico. [While rather common in the yellow pine generally, it 
has been found most abundant on the Mescalero Indian Reservation near Cloudcroft; 
also common in the Black Range, and about Glorieta in Santa Fe County (Ligon, 
1916-1918); seen at Santa Fe in the winter of 1922-23 (Jensen).] W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —Usually in old woodpecker holes in trees and stumps. Eggs: 3 to 4, 
white or whitish. 
Food. —Mainly grasshoppers and other insects, but also small mammals, birds, 
reptiles, and batrachians. One taken by Mr. Ligon had its stomach packed with 
the flesh and hair of mice. One reported by Mr. H. C. Johnson was “literally gorged 
with English Sparrows.” 
General Habits. —A Rocky Mountain Pygmy Owl taken by Mr. 
Bailey in Santa Clara Canyon at sundown had a meadow mouse in its 
stomach and gray fur in its claws. It was in the midst of its molt 
at the time—September 3—its head, body, and yellow feet being pin- 
feathery, its wing quills only partly new. It was an immature female 
and its call, which had betrayed it in the top of a dead tree in the gulch 
back of camp, was a long whistle followed by a cuckoo-like cuck) cuck , 
cuck) cuck, cuck. 
One of the Pygmies was heard by Mr. Birdseye at night high up in 
the San Francisco Mountains, but three specimens taken by him on the 
Negrito and Frisco Rivers when discovered were sitting out in the broad 
sunshine, and the stomach of one was filled with grasshoppers, proving 
that it had been hunting in daylight. The little Owls seem to be most 
active in the early morning and late afternoon, Mr. Henshaw says, 
although he has seen one flying around at noon. 
In the Sacramento Mountains Mr. Ligon has discovered two “by 
the hummingbirds fighting them,” and finds that “the juncos also 
often betray the presence of the little Owl, perched knot-like, on a 
limb” (MS). 
Pygmy Owls found at a nest by Mr. Schnack had the “curious trick 
of flattening themselves out on a branch so that it was almost impossible 
to tell them from the branch itself.” 
A pair of Pygmies watched in the Yosemite, by Mr. F. C. Holman, 
had many interesting habits. When the male came with food for his 
mate, instead of flying to the nest hole, he stopped at an oak grove 
