(BURROWING-OWL.)
+Athene cunicularia+, _Darwin, Zool. Beagle_, iii. p. 31. +Noctua
cunicularia+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 440; _Durnford,
Ibis_, 1877, p. 38, et 1878, p. 397 (Patagonia). +Pholeoptynx
cunicularia+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 117; _Hudson, P. Z. S._
1874, p. 308 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 186
(Buenos Ayres); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1879, p. 423 (Buenos Ayres);
_White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 622 (Catamarca, Misiones). +Speotyto
cunicularia+, _Sharpe, Cat. B._ ii. p. 142; _Barrows, Auk_, 1884,
p. 30 (Entrerios); _Withington, Ibis_, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de
Zamora).
_Description._--Above dark sandy brown, with large oval spots of
white and smaller spots and freckles of pale brown; wings and tail
dark brown, with broad whitish cross bars; facial disk greyish
brown, surrounded by white: beneath white, sides of breast marked
with broad bars of brown, which become fainter on the belly; lower
belly, thighs, and crissum pure white; tarsi feathered; toes
slightly bristled: whole length 10·0 inches, wing 7·5, tail 3·5.
_Female_ similar, but rather larger.
_Hab._ North and South America.
The Burrowing-Owl is abundant everywhere on the pampas of Buenos Ayres
and avoids woods, but not districts abounding in scattered trees and
bushes. It sees much better than most Owls by day, and never affects
concealment nor appears confused by diurnal sounds and the glare of
noon. It stares fixedly--"with insolence," Azara says--at a passer-by,
following him with the eyes, the round head turning about as on a pivot.
If closely approached it drops its body or bobs in a curious fashion,
emitting a brief scream, followed by three abrupt ejaculations; and if
made to fly goes only fifteen or twenty yards away, and alights again
with face towards the intruder; and no sooner does it alight than it
repeats the odd gesture and scream, standing stiff and erect, and
appearing beyond measure astonished at the intrusion. By day it flies
near the surface with wings continuously flapping, and invariably before
alighting glides upwards for some distance and comes down very abruptly.
It frequently runs rapidly on the ground, and is incapable of sustaining
flight long. Gaucho boys pursue these birds for sport on horseback,
taking them after a chase of fifteen or twenty minutes. They live in
pairs all the year, and sit by day at the mouth of their burrow or on
the Vizcacha's mound, the two birds so close together as to be almost
touching; when alarmed they both fly away, but sometimes the male only,
the female diving into the burrow. On the pampas it may be more from
necessity than choice that they always sit on the ground, as they are
usually seen perched on the summits of bushes where such abound, as in
Patagonia.
These are the commonest traits of the Burrowing-Owl in the settled
districts, where it is excessively numerous and has become familiar with
man; but in the regions hunted over by the Indians it is a scarce bird
and has different habits. Shy of approach as a persecuted game fowl, it
rises to a considerable height in the air when the approaching traveller
is yet far off, and flies often beyond sight before descending again to
the earth. This wildness of disposition is, without doubt, due to
the active animosity of the pampas-tribes, who have all the ancient
wide-spread superstitions regarding the Owl. Sister of the Evil Spirit
is one of their names for it; they hunt it to death whenever they can,
and when travelling will not stop to rest or encamp on a spot where an
Owl has been spied. Where the country is settled by Europeans the
bird has dropped its wary habits and become extremely tame. They are
tenacious of the spot they live in, and are not easily driven out by
cultivation. When the fields are ploughed up they make their kennels on
their borders, or at the roadsides, and sit all day perched on the posts
of the fences.
Occasionally they are seen preying by day, especially when anything
passes near them, offering the chance of an easy capture. I have often
amused myself by throwing bits of hard clay near one as it sat beside
its kennel; for the bird will immediately give chase, only discovering
its mistake when the object is firmly clutched in its talons. When there
are young to be fed, they are almost as active by day as by night. On
hot November days multitudes of a large species of _Scarabæus_ appear,
and the bulky bodies and noisy bungling flights of these beetles invite
the Owls to pursuit, and on every side they are seen pursuing, and
striking down the beetles, and tumbling upon them in the grass. Owls
have a peculiar manner of taking their prey: they grapple it so tightly
in their talons that they totter and strive to steady themselves by
throwing out their wings, and, sometimes losing their balance, fall
prostrate and flutter on the ground. If the animal captured be small
they proceed after a while to dispatch it with the beak; if large they
usually rise laboriously from the ground and fly to some distance with
it, thus giving time for the wounds inflicted by the claws to do their
work.
At sunset the Owls begin to hoot; a short followed by a long note is
repeated many times with an interval of a second of silence. There is
nothing dreary or solemn in this performance; the voice is rather soft
and sorrowful, somewhat resembling the lowest notes of the flute in
sound. In spring they hoot a great deal, many individuals responding to
each other.
In the evening they are often seen hovering at a height of forty feet
above the surface, and continuing to do so fully a minute or longer
without altering their position. They do not drop the whole distance at
once on their prey, but descend vertically, tumbling and fluttering as
if wounded, to within ten yards of the earth, and then, after hovering
a few seconds more, glide obliquely on to it. They prey on every living
creature not too large to be overcome by them. Sometimes when a mouse is
caught they tear off the head, tail, and feet, devouring only the body.
The hind quarters of toads and frogs are almost invariably rejected; and
inasmuch as these are the most fleshy and succulent parts, this is a
strange and unaccountable habit. They make an easy conquest of a snake
eighteen inches long, and kill it by dealing it blows with the beak,
hopping briskly about it all the time, apparently to guard themselves
with their wings. They prey largely on the common _Coronella anomala_,
but I have never seen one attacking a venomous species. When they have
young many individuals become destructive to poultry, coming about the
houses and carrying off the chickens and ducklings by day. In seasons of
plenty they destroy far more prey than they can devour; but in severe
winters they come, apparently starving, about the houses, and will then
stoop to carry off any dead animal food, though old and dried up as a
piece of parchment. This I have often seen them do.
Though the Owls are always on familiar terms with the Vizcachas
(_Lagostomus trichodactylus_) and occasionally breed in one of
their disused burrows, as a rule they excavate a breeding-place for
themselves. The kennel they make is crooked, and varies in length
from four to twelve feet. The nest is placed at the extremity, and is
composed of wool or dry grass, often exclusively of dry horse-dung.
The eggs are usually five in number, white, and nearly spherical; the
number, however, varies, and I have frequently found six or seven eggs
in a nest. After the female has begun laying the birds continue carrying
in dry horse-dung, until the floor of the burrow and a space before it
is thickly carpeted with this material. The following spring the loose
earth and rubbish is cleared out, for the same hole may serve them
two or three years. It is always untidy, but mostly so during the
breeding-season, when prey is very abundant, the floor and ground about
the entrance being often littered with excrements, green beetle-shells,
pellets of hair and bones, feathers of birds, hind quarters of frogs
in all stages of decay, great hairy spiders (_Mygale_), remains of
half-eaten snakes, and other unpleasant creatures that they subsist on.
But all this carrion about the little Owl's disordered house reminds one
forcibly of the important part the bird plays in the economy of nature.
The young birds ascend to the entrance of the burrow to bask in the sun,
and receive the food their parents bring; when approached they become
irritated, snapping with their beaks, and retreat reluctantly into the
hole; and for some weeks after leaving it they make it a refuge from
danger. Old and young birds sometimes live together for four or five
months. I believe that nine-tenths of the Owls on the pampas make
their own burrows, but as they occasionally take possession of the
forsaken holes of mammals to breed in, it is probable that they would
always observe this last habit, if suitable holes abounded, as on
the North-American prairies inhabited by the marmot. Probably our
Burrowing-Owl originally acquired the habit of breeding in the ground in
the open level regions it frequented; and when this habit (favourable
as it must have been in such unsheltered situations) had become
ineradicable, a want of suitable burrows would lead it to clean out such
old ones as had become choked up with rubbish, to deepen such as were
too shallow, and ultimately to excavate for itself. The mining instinct
varies greatly in strength, even on the pampas. Some pairs, long mated,
only begin to dig when the breeding-season is already on them; others
make their burrows as early as April--that is six months before the
breeding-season. Generally both birds work, one standing by and
regarding operations with an aspect of grave interest, and taking its
place in the pit when the other retires; but sometimes the female has no
assistance from her partner, and the burrow then is very short. Some
pairs work expeditiously and their kennel is deep and neatly made;
others go about their task in a perfunctory manner, and begin, only to
abandon, perhaps half a dozen burrows, and then rest two or three weeks
from their unprofitable labours. But whether industrious or indolent,
by September they all have their burrows made. I can only account for
Azara's unfortunate statement, repeated since by scores of compilers,
that the Owl never constructs its own habitations, by assuming that
a century ago, when he lived and the country was still very sparsely
settled, this Owl had not yet become so abundant or laid aside the wary
habit the aborigines had taught it, so that he did not become very
familiar with its habits.