Page:Condor16(5).djvu/10

 200 THE CONDOR Vol. XV'l rather in an effort to see plainly, or decoy, than to harm or frighten us. And now continually came the low, musical, indrawn, whistled "Whee e e ". The call would have come more suitably from the bill of some wee plaintive fly- catcher than from this great bird of prey. She also gave vent at this time to an utterly indescribable, turkey-like chuckle. Finally she hooted, but so low that it sounded like a dove, "Coo', coo', coo, coo." But the mate heard and his booming answer sounded from one hundred yards up the canyon. I was listening particularly for the canine quality in the tone and it undoubtedly has much of the full-throated explosive effect of a haying hound. It probably will not hold as an invariable rule, but it is at least interesting that every time either adult hooted, they used the indicated arrangement of two long and two short notes, "Whoo, whoo, who, who." We looked up this last deep-voiced bird where he sat close against the trunk of a pine and he proved to be as fool- _ Ash as the supposed female. He did not even move when a pebble struck his foot. The young were docile, downy little things of a soft grayish and buffy white. They used neither bill nor claw, and the direst threat of the larger bird was a slight parting of the bill as it  shrank back from the touch of ..... ' our hands. This larger bird we took to camp for the night as, mascot of a happy party and as ' hostage from the parent owl. The other young was left in a tree. We arrived next morning to find the old bird busily tearing at a fresh-killed brush rat. Under the tree were the plucked tail feathers and primaries of two jays, probably the work of the , owls. Only one regurgitated pel- ' let was found. That one con- tained the partial skull and leg Fig. 60. SPOTTED OWL: SHE (lAVE A LOW IN' bones of a mouse. By this time the DRAWN WHISTLE WITH A RISlN(] INFLECTION. light had grown stronger, and the old bird had ceased to show any interest whatever in the young which we were busily photographing. Instead she went calmly off to sleep. We had decided to examine the nest in spite of its desertion, so in the cool of the afternoon we fastened a block to the end of our dangling rope, rove the new rope through it and went up from the bottom with the greatest ease. The nest cave was quite good-sized when examined closely, extending up and back for three or fou feet. The nest itself, placed near the entrance, was two and a half feet across, and in situation and construction might well have been a raven's nest. Possibly it was so originally. In any event it had evi- dently been used for years. The comparatively large sticks of its foundation had rotted down and the interstices gradually filled with bones and hair until