. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. GREAT HORNED OWL. With "horns " laid back in anger. 2 quail, I pinnated grouse, 1 pigeon, 1 rail, 1 wild duck, 1 Cooper's hawk, and 2 unknown. The mammals found were as follows: 46 mice and rats, 32 rabbits and hares, 7 shrews, F> squir- rels, 3 chipmunks, 4 pocket-gophers, 2 skunks, 1 weasel and 1 bat. Beyond question, the debit balance against this bird is heavy, and justifies its destruction, wherever found; but at the same time, it goes against the grain
. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. GREAT HORNED OWL. With "horns " laid back in anger. 2 quail, I pinnated grouse, 1 pigeon, 1 rail, 1 wild duck, 1 Cooper's hawk, and 2 unknown. The mammals found were as follows: 46 mice and rats, 32 rabbits and hares, 7 shrews, F> squir- rels, 3 chipmunks, 4 pocket-gophers, 2 skunks, 1 weasel and 1 bat. Beyond question, the debit balance against this bird is heavy, and justifies its destruction, wherever found; but at the same time, it goes against the grain to kill a bird which destroys so many rats. The Great Horned Owl, or Hoot-Owl, as it is frequently called, is a bird of dignified and im- posing appearance. Its big, round-topped horns of feathers are singularly like cats' ears in shape, and when with these are seen the fiercely-glaring eyes of yellow and black, the half-yellow face and fluffy white feathers on the throat, the whole head of this bird is singularly like that of a Ben- gal tiger. The body plumage is a complex mot- tling and barring of black and brown, dull yellow and white, impossible to describe successfully. But this bird can always be recognized by its large size, cat's-ear "horns," and the fine,black horizontal bars across its breast-feathers. From wing to wing, across its upper breast there is an assemblage of heavy splashes of black. The eastern Great Horned Owl is the type species on which are based the Western, Arctic, Dusky and Pacific Horned Owls, which in com- But let us give even the Horned Owl its just due. Mr. 0. E. Niles, of Ohio, once found in a nest of this bird "several full-grown Norway rats with their skulls opened and brains removed," and on the ground under the tree which contained the nest he found "the bodies of one hundred and thirteen rats, most of them full grown!" Now, in the course of a year, would not one hundred and thirteen Norway rats consume and dest
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