birds flew in circles around the tree, keeping out of gun-shot, and apparently undisturbed by the light. The young birds were kept alive for several weeks, but finally escaped. They had the habit, when any one entered the room in which they were kept, of throwing themselves back and making a loud snapping noise with their bills.
In February, 1831, as Audubon was informed, a fine specimen of one of these Owls was taken alive in Marblehead, Mass., having been seen perched upon a woodpile early in the morning. It was obtained by Mr. Ives, of Salem, by whom it was kept several months. It was fed on fish and small birds, and ate its food readily. It would at times utter a tremulous cry, not unlike that of the common Screech-Owl (Scops asio), and manifested the greatest antipathy to cats and dogs.
Dr. Cooper found this bird near the mouth of the Columbia River, in a brackish meadow partially covered with small spruce-trees, where they sat concealed during the day, or made short flights from one to another. Dr. Cooper procured a specimen there in June, and has no doubt that the bird is resident and breeds in that neighborhood. He regards it as somewhat diurnal in its habits, and states that it is especially active toward sunset.
Dr. Newberry speaks of this Owl as one generally distributed over the western part of the continent, he having met with it in the Sacramento Valley, in the Cascade Mountains, in the Des Chutes Basin, and in Oregon, on the Columbia River. Mr. Robert MacFarlane found it in great abundance in the Anderson River region. On the 19th of July, as we find in one of his memoranda, he met with a nest of this species near Lockhart River, on the route to Fort Good Hope. The nest was on the top of a pine-tree, twenty feet from the ground. It contained two eggs and two young, both of which were dead. The nest was composed of sticks and mosses, and was lined thinly with down. The female was sitting on the nest, but left it at his approach, and flew to a tree at some distance, where she was shot.
Mr. Donald Gunn writes that the Cinereous Owl is to be found both in summer and in winter throughout all the country commonly known as the Hudson Bay Territory. He states that it hunts by night, preys upon rabbits and mice, and nests in tall poplar-trees, usually quite early in the season.
A single specimen of this Owl was taken at Sitka by Bischoff, and on the 20th of April Mr. Dall obtained a female that had been shot at Takitesky, about twenty miles east of the Yukon, near Nulato. He subsequently obtained several specimens in that region. Mr. Dall describes it as very stupid, and easy to be caught by the hand during the daytime. From its awkward motions its Indian name of nūhl-tūhl, signifying “heavy walker,” is derived. So far as observed by Mr. Dall, this Owl appeared to feed principally upon small birds, and he took no less than thirteen crania and other remains of Ægiothus linaria from the crop of a single bird.
Specimens of this Owl have also been received by the Smithsonian Institution, collected by Mr. Kennicott, from Fort Yukon and from Nulato; from Mr. J. McKenzie, Moose Factory; from J. Lockhart, obtained at Fort Resolution and at Fort Yukon; from J. Flett, at La Pierre House; from B. R. Ross, at Big Island; and from Mr. S. Jones and Mr. J. McDougall, at Fort Yukon. These were all taken between February 11 and July 19.
One of the eggs of this Owl, referred to above in Mr. MacFarlane’s note, is in my cabinet. It is small for the size of the bird, and is of a dull soiled-white color, oblong in shape, and decidedly more pointed at one end than at the other. It measures 2.25 inches in length by 1.78 in breadth. The drawing of an egg of this species, made by Mr. Audubon from a supposed specimen of an egg of this species, referred to in the “North American Oölogy,” and which measured 2.44 by 2.00 inches, was probably a sketch of the egg of the Snowy Owl.
Strix nebulosa, Forst. Phil. Trans. XXII, 386 & 424, 1772.—Gmel. Syst. Nat. p. 291, 1789.—Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 58, 1790; Syn. I, 133; Gen. Hist. I, 338.—Daud. Tr. Orn. II, 191, 1800.—Shaw, Zoöl. VII, 245, 1839; Nat. Misc. pl. xxv.—Vieill. Ois. Am. Sept. pl. xvii, 1807; Nouv. Dict. Hist. Nat. VII, 32; Enc. Méth. III, 1292.—Aud. Birds Am. pl. xlvi, 1831; Orn. Biog. I, 242.—Temm. Man. Orn. pt. i, p. 88; pt. iii, p. 47.—Wern. Atl. Ois. Eur.—Meyer, Taschenb. Deutsch Vogelk. III, 21; Zusätze, p. 21.—Wils. Am. Orn. pl. xxxiii, f. 2, 1808.—Rich. & Swains. F. B. A. II, 81.—Bonap. Ann. Lyc. N. Y. II, 38; Isis, 1832, p. 1140.—Jard. (Wils.) Am. Orn. II, 57, 1832. Ulula nebulosa, Steph. Zoöl. XIII, pl. ii, p. 60, 1815.—Cuv. Reg. An. (ed. 2), I, 342, 1829.—James. (Wils.) Am. Orn. I, 107, 1831; IV, 280.—Bonaparte, List, page 7, 1838; Conspectus Avium, p. 53.—Gould, Birds Eur. pl. xlvi.—Less. Man. Orn. I, 113, 1828; Tr. Orn. p. 108.—Gray, Gen. B. fol. (ed. 2), p. 8, 1844.—De Kay, Zoöl. N. Y. II, 29, pl. x, f. 21, 1844. Syrnium nebulosum, Gray, Gen. B. fol. sp. 9, 1844; List Birds Brit. Mus. p. 104.—Cass. Birds Cal. & Tex. p. 184, 1854; Birds N. Am. 1858, 56.—Giraud, Birds Long Island, p. 24, 1844.—Woodh. in Sitgr. Rept. Expl. Zuñi & Colorad. p. 63, 1853.—Brew. (Wils.) Am. Orn. p. 687, 1852.—Kaup, Monog. Strig. Cont. Orn. 1852, p. 121.—Ib. Tr. Zoöl. Soc. IV, 256.—Strickl. Orn. Syn. I, 189, 1855.—Max. Cab. Jour. VI, 1858, 28.—Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 330 (Texas, resident).—Coues, Key, 1872, 204.—Gray, Hand List, I, 48, 1869.
Sp. Char. Adult. Head, neck, breast, back, scapulars, and rump with broad regular transverse bars of ochraceous-white and deep umber-brown, the latter color always terminal; on the upper surface the brown somewhat exceeds the whitish in width, but on the neck and breast the white rather predominates. The lower third of the breast is somewhat differently marked from the upper portion, the brown bars being connected along the shaft of the feather, throwing the white into pairs of spots on opposite webs. Each feather of the abdomen, sides, flanks, and lower tail-coverts has a broad medial longitudinal stripe of brown somewhat deeper in tint than the transverse bars on the upper parts; the anal region is plain, more ochraceous, white; the legs have numerous, but rather faint, transverse spots of brown. Ground-color of the wings and tail brown, like the bars of the back; middle and secondary wing-coverts with roundish transverse spots of nearly pure white on lower webs; lesser coverts plain rich brown; secondaries crossed by six bands of pale grayish-brown, passing into paler on the edge of each feather,—the last is terminal, passing narrowly into whitish; primary coverts with four bands of darker ochraceous-brown; primaries with transverse series of quadrate pale-brown spots on the outer webs (growing deeper in tint on inner quills), the last terminal; on the longest are about eight. Tail like the wings, crossed with six or seven sharply defined bands of pale brown, the last terminal.
Face grayish-white, with concentric semicircular bars of brown; eyebrows and lores with black shafts; a narrow crescent of black against anterior angle of the eye. Facial circle of blackish-brown and creamy-white bars, the former prevailing along the anterior edge, the latter more distinct posteriorly, and prevailing across the neck in front, where the brown forms disconnected transverse spots.
♀ (752, Carlisle, Penn.). Wing-formula, 4–3, 5–2, 6; 1=9. Wing, 13.00; tail, 9.00; culmen, 1.05; tarsus, 1.90; middle toe, 1.50.
♂. A little smaller. (No specimen marked ♂ in the collection.)
Hab. Eastern North America, west to the Missouri; Rio Grande region.
A female (?) from Calais, Me., (4,966; G. A. Boardman,) is somewhat lighter-colored than the type, owing to the clearer white of the bars. It measures, wing, 13.50; tail, 9.80.
A specimen (4,357, January) from Washington, D. C., is quite remarkable for the very dark tints of plumage and the unusual prevalence of the brown; this is of a more reddish cast than in all other specimens, becoming somewhat blackish on the head and neck; anteriorly it prevails so as to almost completely hide the pale bars of the back and nape. The tail has no bars except three or four very obsolete ones near the end; beneath, the ochraceous tinge is quite deep. The toes, except their first joint, are perfectly naked; the middle one, however, has a narrow strip of feathering running along the outer side as far as the last joint. The darker shades of color, and more naked toes, seem to be distinguishing features of southern examples.
