Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/439



Not a single individual of the numerous persons who have described the birds of the United States, seems to have had opportunities of study- ing the habits of this beautiful Owl, and all that I find related respecting it is completely at variance with my observations. In describing the manners of this bird, I shall therefore use all due caution, although at the same time I shall not be too anxious to obtain credit in this, more than in some other matters, for which I have patiently borne the contra- dictions of the ignorant. The following extracts from my journals I hope will prove interesting.

St Augustine, East Florida, 8th November 1832. — Mr Simmons, the Keeper of the Fort, whom I had known at Henderson in Kentucky, having informed me that some boys had taken five young Barn Owls from a hole in one of the chimneys, I went with a ladder to see if I could procure some more. After much search I found only a single egg, which had been recently laid. It was placed on the bare stone of the wall, surrounded by fragments of small quadrupeds of various kinds. During our search I found a great number of the disgorged pellets of the Owl, among which some were almost fresh. They contained portions of skulls and bones of small quadrupeds unknown to me. I also found the entire skeleton of one of these Owls in excellent condition, and observing a curious bony crest-like expansion on the skull from the base of the cere above to that of the lower mandible, elevated nearly a quarter of an inch from the solid part of the skull, and forming a curve like a horse-shoe, I made an outline of it. On speaking to the officers of the garrison respecting this species of Owl, Lieutenant Constantine Smith, a most amiable and intelligent officer of our army, informed me, that, in the months of July and August of that year, these birds bred more abundantly than at the date above stated. Other persons also assured me that, like the House Pigeon, the Barn Owl breeds at all seasons of the year in that part of the country. The statement was farther corroborated by Mr Lee Williams, a gentleman formerly attached to the topographi-