338 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Oxfordshire it has been reported near Henley in IQOl,"^ 

 and near Goring* in 1907.t 



A good many Little Owls have been liberated at Tring, 

 and some of the birds recorded from western Hertfordshire, 

 southern Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire may possibly 

 have had their origin from these introductions, but the 

 birds turned down at Tring do not seem to have been very 

 successful, and from the distribution and the dates of the 

 records, as well as from the fact that the birds have un- 

 doubtedly spread correspondingly far in other directions 

 from the centre of Lilford, it seems more reasonable to 

 refer the records to that origin. 



Its northward and eastward extensions have not been so 

 well recorded, and there are many gaps, but its spread 

 from the centre of Lilford is none the less fairly clear. 

 The north-east of Northamptonshire has, for some time, 

 been one of its strongholds, and eastwards we find it 

 nesting near Offord Darcy, near Huntingdon, in 1907, !|] 

 and in Cambridgeshire in 1907,§ while several have been 

 reported from Suffolk and Norfolk since 1901 but none 

 have yet bred in Norfolk. || 



Northwards Lord Lilford himself^ records a specimen 

 from as far as Normanton in Rutland in 1891, and notes its 

 gradual spread northwards near Lilford in the early 

 nineties. In Rutland Mr. Haines states'^* that young were 

 caught near Glaston in 1895, two birds were found dead 

 near Seaton in 1897, one was caught as far north as Exton 

 Park, and another shot at Burley in 1899, while in 1900 

 nests were found at the latter place, and in 1902 and sub- 

 sequent years the birds appear to have bred freely in 

 several districts. At Exton Park, Lord Gainsborough 

 tells us, they have increased wonderfully since they first 

 appeared. The bird now nests plentifully there in holes 



* C. W. Bradshaw, Zool., 1901, p. 476. f Field, 30, xi., 1907. 



% F. C. R. Jourdain, fide C. E. Wright, in litt. 



§ id., cf. also Field, 5, x., 1907, and 12, x., 1907. 



II J. H. Gvvrney, in lift. ^ Birds of Norths., p. 67. 



** C. Reginald Haines, Birds of Rutland, p. 91. 



