And this was the plea I put there: Make me so pure and good That I shall be worthy the friendship Of river, and field, and wood. Lucia Belle Cook. [Illustration: GREAT GRAY OWL. (Scotiaptex cinerea). ⅓ Life-size. FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.] THE GREAT GRAY OWL. (_Scotiaptex cinerea_.) Through Mossy and viny vistas Soaked ever with deepest shade, Dimly the dull owl stared and stared From his bosky ambuscade. —James Whitcomb Riley, “A Vision of Summer.” The Great Gray or Cinereous Owl is the largest of the American owls. The appearance of great size, however, is due to its thick and fluffy plumage. Its body is very small being only slightly larger than those of the barred or hoot owl. The eggs are also said to be small when compared with the size of the bird. The range of this handsome Owl is practically confined to the most northern regions of North America, where it breeds from the latitude of Hudson Bay northward as far as forests extend. In the winter it is more or less migratory, the distance that it travels southward seeming to depend solely on the severity of the season. It has been captured in several of the northern United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. It is related in “The Hawks and Owls of the United States,” that “Dr. Dall considers it a stupid bird and states that sometimes it may be caught in the hands. Its great predilection for thick woods, in which it dwells doubtless to the very limit of trees, prevents it from being an inhabitant of the barren grounds or other open country in the north. It is crepuscular or slightly nocturnal in the southern parts of its range, but in the high north it pursues its prey in the daytime. In the latter region, where the sun never passes below the horizon in summer, it is undoubtedly necessity and not choice that prompts it to be abroad in the daylight.” Its yellow eyes are very small and would indicate day-hunting proclivities. Dr. A. K. Fisher states that its “food seems to consist principally of hares, mice and others of the smaller mammals as well as small birds.” Dr. W. H. Dall has taken “no less than thirteen skulls and other remains of red-poll linnets from the crop of a single bird.” Specimens in captivity are reported to have relished a diet of fish. Its nest is described as a coarse structure built in the taller trees and composed of twigs and lined with moss and feathers. The note of this great bird is said to be “a tremulous, vibrating sound, somewhat resembling that of the screech owl.” The Great Gray Owl is also known as the Great Sooty Owl and the Spectral Owl. Its generic title, Scotiaptex, is from two Greek words, one meaning darkness and the other to frighten.