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Sep., x9ox I THE CONDOR and if any entered the cage to feed up- on the leavings of what the owls were fed, they were probably pounced upon and consumed instanter. Illustrating the pouncing act, when the owls were very hungry and I threw a morsel of food of familiar variety into the cage, an owl would drop out of the keg and onto the "prey" in less time than the force of gravity allows. Generally the other two birds waited a longer or short- er interval after the first one alighted, just as the first one at times was more or less eager. Often I would have to move away a few feet before the first owl would come out of the keg where they remained all day. They were fed upon raw meat, dead poultry and even dead cats and generally had an over- abundance of food before them. Wheth- er stale food was bad for them or not is a doubt in my mind. Two of the owls seemed to be of one sex because one bird kept in a cage by itself and the other two were always to- gether. On Feb. ?2, ?899 I heard the two birds chuckling and "talking" to each other, and remembering the pair that nested in T888 on my third-story balcony had acted in this manner over their eggs, I entered the cage and found one egg in the keg occupied by the two birds and both birds in the keg. Knowing it requires about two weeks to produce a set, they were not dis- turbed, but on the morning of the ?9th I found a dead owl but had no chance to determine if it was the un- mated one. By the 26th they all died and the first two dead ones were partly eaten by their survivor, although suffici- ent food was at hand. On this day a second egg was found in the keg. Both eggs were fresh and show no variation when compared with a series from wild relations. As to the owls' sudden demise I can only conjecture that the sameness of food constantly may have hastened the end, and that the lack of exercise had ha[dly any influence upon birds under a year old. The last bird was a female and poor in plumage. The shaft feathers were in good order and those of the back ?vere fairly abundant, while the frill about the face was rather scant and the feathers thence down along the under parts were not numerous enough to make a good specimen. The bones and carcasses and the coni- meritably small number of regurgitated pellets were raked out and hauled away and the cage converted into a chicken coop. The hens now lay eggs in the nail kegs but the monkey-faces of the aboriginal owners no longer peer over the rims in response to my foot- steps. I always regretted that these owls were so unmanageable or I should have turned them loose to prey upon the rats infesting the chicken yard. A Barn Owl does more good in destroying rodents than five good cats. There are one or more pairs of Barn Owls about the town of Alameda and where they nest has always been a mystery to me. On calm nights they are often heard overhead "clicking" and chuckling, and I have detected four notes of this species the other two being hisses. The owls I had in captivity never sounded the "clicking" notes, which may be likened to the sound of a slow-moving fishing reel. My regret is that I did not take more time to study the habits, especially the food influence upon captives. Mr. H. R. Taylor has had numerous species of raptores in his "raptory," including a Barn Owl, but it had only a Horned Owl for a mate and did not produce any eggs; neither did the Western Redtails,the Golden Eagle, the Duck Hawks, nor the White- tailed Kites. Sets of Barn Owl's eggs are found earlier in certain years than in others. In T899 my birds began Feb. t2, and from several pairs of wild birds six fresh eggs were taken from one pair on April 27, and in the nest from which my captive birds were taken were three eggs on April ?9 as the two earliest records. In x9oo the first eggs were: March 24, six eggs, incubation fresh to