300 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



on the moors there. In Arkengarthdale it is an occasional 

 breeder {op. cit. 1892, p. 319), and in the Malham neighbourhood 

 the nest and young have been taken, together with the parent 

 birds, while I learn on good authority that in the spring of 

 1894 a keeper in that district shot a " Moss Owl " as she rose 

 from her nest, and afterwards destroyed the eggs. This bird 

 is also reported as nesting on several of the moors in the 

 extreme north-west of the county ; one was shot near Bentham 

 on 13th June 1903, and in all probability would be nesting 

 on the moors near that place. Mr. Thomas Bunker of Goole 

 tells me that he is quite confident that a pair bred on the moors 

 near that town in 1879, for they were observed there during 

 the summer, and some men employed in draining told him 

 that on one occasion they must have been in close proximity 

 to the nest, as the old birds swooped at them ; while, in 1898, 

 Mr. Audas had a young Short-eared Owl brought from Thorne 

 Waste, where he has frequently noticed the adult bird. Other 

 localities in which it is said to have bred in the West Riding 

 are on the Otley Moors and near Skipton. 



In the North Riding it is mentioned in A. G. More's valuable 

 paper on the distribution of birds during the breeding season 

 {Ibis. 1865), as frequenting the moors near Scarborough, on 

 the authority of Mr. A. S. Bell, and I am indebted to Mr. More 

 for a copy of Mr. Bell's letter to him, dated i8th November 

 1862, in which he says : — " Another nest taken this year in 

 the heath on the moors near Scarborough. The eggs were 

 laid in a hole scratched in the ground, four in number. In 

 the former case the eggs were in a hole in a bank side im- 

 mediately under the root of a tree." So recently as June 

 1904, the young, with down still adhering to their feathers, 

 were taken on a moor near Scarborough, where as many as 

 eleven old birds had been seen on the wing at one time in 

 the previous April (J. Morley, in Hit). In July of the same 

 year Mr. Zimmerman of York discovered a nest, containing 

 three young ones, at Strensall Common, his attention being 

 drawn to the place by the peculiar clucking call of the parent 

 birds which flew around him at close quarters. 



The late William Lister saw the young birds taken from a 



