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ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE AMERICAN MOTTLED OWL, 

 {8TRIX A8I0, Audubon,) NEAR LEEDS. 



BY RICHARD HOBSON, ESQ., M.D. 



In accordance with your request, I at once set to work to endeavour to 

 authenticate the fact of a "Mottled Owl" being killed in Yorkshire, which 

 Owl is now in my possession. 



The Owl in question is in its grey plumage ; and was shot by Joseph Owen, 

 who then did, and still continues to, reside at Kirkstall.* It was killed in the 

 breeding season of 1852, in Hawksworth cover, the property of Lord Cardi- 

 gan, half a mile above Kirkstall Abbey, on the banks of the river Aire, 

 about four miles west of Leeds. At that period, there were a pair of owls; 

 and, as far as Joseph Owen could judge by moonlight, they appeared to be 

 similar in size, colour and flight. He at once saw that these birds differed 

 materially from our common Screech Owl, and was therefore extremely 

 anxious to secure them ; and, having shot one, he went to their haunt, night 

 after night, to obtain the remaining one ; but this he unfortunately never 

 could accomplish. Several other parties saw the remaining bird, and fre- 

 quently called on Owen to desire him to go up to shoot it. From that 

 period, however, it has not been seen. 



Owen, ignorant of the value of his treasure, gave this Owl, in the flesh, to 

 a bird-stufFer in Leeds, called Matthew Smith ; who immediately put it up, 

 under the impression that it was a " Scops-Eared Owl;" and, under the same 

 error in judgment, and, I may add, oftsiwa^e conviction, sold it tome. On 

 his delivering it at ray house, there happened to be present two excellent 

 ornithologists, — Mr. Denny, the talented Curator of the Leeds Philosophical 

 Hall, and Mr. Graham, of York, far-famed in ornithological pursuits. The 

 moment that Graham's keen eye caught a glimpse of the bird, he — in not 

 a very conciliatory tone, I admit — ci'ied out to the vendor, " That's not a 

 Scops-Eared Owl ; " when Mr. Smith, with still less of the suaviter in modo, 

 replied, '■ But I say it is a Scops-Eared Owl." My good friend Mr. Waterton's 

 words, which he had often expressed to me previously — " We bird-stuffers 

 are a most pugnacious tribe " — were in vivid view ; and I therefore appealed 

 to Mr. Denny, who unhesitatingly pronounced it the " Mottled Owl." Mr. 

 Smith, however, stuck with, if possible, increased pertinacity to his text ; 

 until I produced Catesby and Wilson, both having figured the Mottled Owl 

 in its different plumage, but under different names ; viz., the Red, and the 

 Mottled Owl ; when he then, after Hudibras's fashion — 

 " Convince a man against his will," &c. — 



reluctantly yielded. Mr. Denny afterwards laid a Scops-Eared Owl on the 



• I have had a letter from Owen's employer, Mr. Ambrose Butler, who says, 

 having »1iottlie'bird."—'R.'H. 

 VOL. V. 



