170 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the short dive he brought his wings together beneath him, stretching 

 them back posteriorly and striking them rapidly together with short 

 clapping strokes. The dive ended simultaneously with the clapping, 

 when the bird spread his wings, abruptly and noiselessly turning his 

 course upward with a swoop. The clapping was clearly visible with 

 the field-glass and the fluttering sound produced by it was distinctly 

 audible. He seemed to be applauding his own aerial performance." 

 Mr. DuBois observed this flight song during four years, on the Great 

 Plains in Montana between March 17 and August 28. In the later 

 dates the young are already partly grown. On one occasion when he 

 had examined a nest of four young and had seated himself at a dis- 

 tance, one parent disappeared, "the other flew and soared in circles 

 above me, gradually climbing until it was at a great height. During 

 the time that I watched, he twice indulged in wing-clapping. Having 

 thus spiraled upward above me to his maximum height, he shifted his 

 center of flight to a point more nearly over the nest, at the same time 

 reducing his elevation." 



Francis Harper writes that he observed the courtship flight of this 

 owl at Gardiners Island, N. Y., in 1911 and thus describes it: "Late 

 in the afternoon of June 14 I noticed one of the owls high up in the air, 

 flying with exceptionally slow and somewhat jerky wing strokes at 

 the rate of 150 a minute and making scarcely any headway. There 

 seemed to be almost a perceptible pause of the wings as they reached 

 their highest point, before beginning the downward stroke. Now and 

 then the bird would swoop downward, meanwhile striking its long 

 wings beneath its body, perhaps 8 or 12 times in the space of a second 

 or two. It was a remarkable act, quite unlike anything known to me 

 among other birds. The owl kept more or less over a particular part 

 of the pasture and was probably 200, or even 300, feet in the air at 

 times." 



Edward A. Preble (1908) reports that several individuals of this 

 species were seen on April 30, 1901, to the north of Edmonton, 

 Alberta. "They were usually flying in pairs, and the males frequently 

 swooped down toward their mates from a considerable height, holding 

 their wings high above the back and uttering peculiar quavering cries." 



Nesting.' — The short-eared owl nests on the ground generally in a 

 slight depression very sparsely lined with grasses and weed stalks and 

 an occasional feather. Sometimes the nest seems to consist only 

 of the flattened and dead vegetation of the spot chosen, or merely a 

 slight hollow in bare sand. It may be entirely exposed to light in an 

 open field or marsh or partly hidden by a clump of grasses or weeds. 

 A. K. Fisher (1893b) says that "in exceptional cases it has been found 

 in a clump of low bushes, or otherwise slightly elevated." 



Coues (1874) quotes Dall who had found the short-eared owl 

 "breeding in burrows on the island of Oomalashka; 'the hole is hori- 



