THE SCOPS EARED OWL. 



81 



Cape of Good Hope. It is by no means an uncommon bird in Southern Europe. A very good 

 description is given of the habits of the Scops Eared Owl by Mr. Spence. 



"This Owl, which in summer is very common in Italy, is remarkable for the constancy 

 and regularity with which it utters its peculiar note or cry. It does not merely ' to the moon 

 complain,' but keeps repeating its plaintive and monotonous cry of Kew ! Icew! (whence its 

 Florentine name of Chiu, pronounced almost exactly like the English letter Q) in the regular 

 intervals of about two seconds the livelong night, and until one is used to it, nothing can well 

 be more wearisome. Towards the end of April, last year, 1830, one of these Owls established 

 itself in the large Jardin Anglais, behind the house where we resided at Florence, and until 

 our departure for Switzerland in the beginning of June, I recollect but one or two instances in 

 which it was not constantly to be heard, as if in spite to the nightingales, who abounded there 



LONG-EARED OWL (page 86) Agio americanu, and SCOPS EARED OWL Scope carnioliaca. 



from nightfall to midnight (and probably much later), whenever I chanced to be in the back 

 part of the house, or took a friend to listen to it, and always with precisely the same unwearied 

 cry, and the intervals between each as regular as the tickings of a pendulum. 



"This species of Owl, according to Professor Savi's excellent Ornitologia Toscana, 

 Vol. I. p. 74, is the only Italian species which migrates ; passing the winter, in Africa and 

 Southern Asia, and the summer in the south of France. It feeds wholly upon beetles, grass- 

 hoppers, and other insects." 



The length of this tiny Owl is only seven inches and a half, the female being a little longer 

 than her mate. The nest is generally placed in a hollow tree or the cleft of a rock, and con- 

 tains from two to four white eggs. It is a pretty little bird, the general coloring being much 

 as follows. The head is light brown, marked with several narrow dark-brown streaks ; the 

 back is variegated brown and chestnut, marked with dark bands and gray mottlings. The wing 

 is brown, speckled largely with white and gray, and the tail is similarly barred and dashed 

 with black and pale brown. The facial disk is grayish-white, thickly covered with small 

 brown spots, and the two feather-tufts of the head are similarly tinted. The under portions 



VOL. IL-ll. 



