One of the most interesting of this tribe of birds is the little Acadian Owl, (_Strix Acadica_,) whose note has formerly excited a great deal of curiosity. In "The Canadian Naturalist," an account is given of a rural excursion in April, in the course of which the attention of one of the party is called by his companion, just after sunset, to a peculiar sound proceeding from a cedar swamp. It was compared to the measured tinkling of a cow-bell, or regular strokes upon a piece of iron, quickly repeated. The one appealed to is able to give no satisfactory information about it, but remarks, that, "during the months of April and May, and in the former part of June, we frequently hear, after nightfall, the sound just described. From its regularity, it is thought to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the bird from which it proceeds is called the Saw-Whetter." The author could not identify the bird that uttered this note, but conjectured that it might be a Heron or a Bittern. It has since been ascertained that this singular note proceeds from the Acadian Owl. It is like the sound produced by the filing of a mill-saw, and is said to be the amatory note of the male, being heard only during the season of incubation.
Mr. S.P. Fowler, of Danvers, informs me that "the Acadian Owl has another note, which we frequently hear in the autumn, after the breeding season is over. The parent birds, then accompanied by their young, while hunting their prey during a bright moonlight night, utter a peculiar note, resembling a suppressed moan or a low whistle. The little Acadian, to avoid the annoyance of the birds he would meet by day, and the blinding light of the sun, retires in the morning, his feathers wet with dew and rumpled by the hard struggles he has encountered in seizing his prey, to the gloom of the forest or the thick swamp, where, perched on a bough, near the trunk of the tree, he sleeps through a summer's day, the perfect picture of a _used-up_ little fellow, suffering from the sad effects of a night's carouse. But he is an honest bird, notwithstanding his late hours and his idle sleeping days; he is also domestic in his habits, and the father of an interesting family, close at hand, in a hollow white-birch, and he is ever ready to give them his support and protection."