Page:Condor11(5).djvu/6

 148 THE CONDOR VOL. XI found. Nests ranged from seven to twenty-five feet from the ground and were mostly in Gilded Flicker holes, tho sometimes a natural cavity was utilized. In most cases the sitting female seemed to be in a trance and made no resistance when taken from .the nest. One bird when lifted from three downy young seemed com- pletely dazed, and sat on my hand for a minute or more, then gravely tumbled back into the nest. A pair have nested for two years in a willow tree in a front yard here at the school. In the evening they are quite noisy and fly back and forth from the nest tree to a certain other tree nearby. The old ones seem to provide for and look after the young for some time after maturity of the latter. Burrowing Owls, or, more properly, Ground Owls, are rare in this immediate vicinity, tho_'said to be more numerous on down the Gila river. I have seen only four here; one was dug out of a hole on the school farm by Indian boys; and. another flew up in the face of my team one evening near-. ly causing a runaway. The Pimas call this owl Kau-kau- hii'. The little Ferruginous Pig- my Owl is fairly numerous and may be seen flying about in the daytime. They are not wild and the observer may ap- , proach as near as ten or fifteen feet before flight is taken. The bird will sit quietly with eyes staring at you, all the while impudently jerking his tail from side to side in a most undignified and un-owl- like manner. His call, given usually in the evening, is a dimimitive hoot, repeated at ' short intervals. The only ,j - . complete set found contained m,,  . four eggs, and was discovered f. -'  by seeing the bird leave the nst while I was a short dis- AN ADULT IERRUGINOUS PIGMY OWL ante from the tree and be- fore any alarming demonstra- tion had been made. She was very shy about returning to the nest. After re- turning, she hesitated some time before venturing into the hole, and when she did enter, she came out at once for a look around. At my first movement she hastily left the nest again, and when she came back her mate accompanied her. This nest was in a deserted Gila Woodpeeker's hole 20 feet from the ground in a cottonwood tree. While they are sitting on a tree in plain sight they are not shy, but when in a hole they are very timid, afraid of being captured I suppose. A few times I have seen a head stick from a hole but every time the bird got out before I could ap- proach very near. At Agua Caliente I heard one of the owls hooting repeatedly one hot day, and investigating, found two hummingbirds busily attacking him as he sat in a mesquite tree. I began to look for his mate and soon saw a promising looking Gila