132 



BIRDS OF PREY. 



SHORT-EARED OWL. 



{Stru brachyotos, Latham. Wilson, iv. p. 64. pi. 33. fig. 3. [male.] 

 Philad. Museum, No. 440.) 



Spec. Charact. — Ear-like tufts inconspicuous, of 2 or 3 very short 

 feathers ; general color ochreous, spotted with blackish-brown ; 

 face round the eyes blackish; tail, with about 5 bands, not ex- 

 tending beyond the tips of the wings. — Female with the gen- 

 eral tints paler. In the young the face is blackish. 



This is another of those nocturnal wanderers which 

 now and then arrive amongst us from the northern re- 

 gions where alone they breed. It comes to Hudson's 

 Bay from the south about May ; where it makes a nest 

 of dry grass on the ground, and, as usual, has white 

 eggs. After rearing its brood it departs for the south in 

 September, and in its migrations has been met with as 

 far as New Jersey, near Philadelphia, where, according 

 to Wilson, it arrives in November, and departs in April. 

 Pennant remarks, that it has been met with in the south- 

 ern continent of America at the Falkland islands. It is 

 likewise spread through every part of Europe, and is 

 common in all the forests of Siberia ; it also visits the 

 Orkney islands, and Iceland. In England it appears 

 and disappears with the migrations of the Woodcock. 

 Its food is almost exclusively mice, for which it watches, 

 seated on a stump, with all the vigilance of a cat, listen- 

 ing attentively to the low squeak of its prey, to which it 

 is so much alive as to be sometimes brought in sight by 

 imitating the sound. They are readily attracted by the 

 blaze of nocturnal fires, and on such occasions have some- 

 times had the blind temerity to attack m-sn, and come so 

 close to combat, as to be knocked down with sticks. When 

 wounded, they also display the same courageous ferocity, 

 so as to be dangerous to approach. In dark and cloudy 

 weather it sometimes ventures abroad by day-light, takes 



