Unlike other species of owls, the Burrowing Owl is especially fitted for a subterranean mode of life. It will make its home in the burrows of the various animals that inhabit the prairie regions. These birds are social and live in colonies consisting of several pairs. Some Indians have claimed that it retires into its burrow at the approach of winter, and there remains in a torpid condition during the cold weather. Careful observers have, however, shown that this is not the case. It may be said that, except in the northern part of its range, where the winters are severe, it is resident wherever found and not migratory. It is probable that it would not be migratory at all were it not that the animals upon which it feeds are not obtainable in severe weather. Investigation has proved that the stories of the confidential relations existing between the Burrowing Owl, the prairie dog and the rattlesnake are pure fabrications of an imaginative mind, greatly strengthened by additions as they are passed from person to person. The only foundation for these stories is the fact that this Owl and also the rattlesnake do occasionally enter the burrows of the prairie dog. Dr. Coues has said “that the Owls live at ease in the settlements and on familiar terms with their four-footed neighbors is an undoubted fact; but that they inhabit the same burrows or have any intimate domestic relations is quite another thing. It is no proof that the quadrupeds and the birds live together that they are often seen to scuttle at each other’s heels into the same hole when alarmed, for in such a case the two simply seek the nearest shelter independently of each other.” It is not at all strange that the snakes should also enter these holes. It may be that they do so for the want of some other retreat on a broad expanse of prairie, but it is much more probable that they are in search of food, either in the form of young dogs or the eggs of the Owl. Though the Burrowing Owls are found with the burrowing mammals, they do not occupy the same holes with them and do without doubt drive them out if they wish to pre-empt the burrows for their own use.