The Great Gray Owl in California
The Great Gray Owl in California
Up to the present time there have been but two records of Scotiaptex nebulosa for California. Newberry (Pac. R. R. Reports, BI, 1857. p. 77) accredits the species rather vaguely to "the Sacramento Valley." Belding (Land Bds. Pac. Dist., 1890, p. 50) knew of a specimen having been killed "in the hills near Chico", Butte County.
On September 26, 1913, a farm hand on the property of Mr. Chas. S. Wheeler, about six miles south of the town of McCloud, in Siskiyou County, California, killed a Great Gray Owl. To be more specific, as I am informed by Mr. Wheeler, the locality is Section 28, Township 39 North, Range 2 West. The bird was sent to a taxidermist in San Francisco where it was mounted, and subsequently presented by Mr. Wheeler to the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, where it is catalogued as number 24484 of the ornithological collection. As compared with specimens of Scotiaptex nebulosa nebulosa from Alaska and Canada, I can see no noteworthy peculiarities.
J. GRINNELL
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
