SCOPS EARED OWL. 43 



and as often near Norwich, and no doubt the one 

 mentioned by Hunt"^ as obtained at Bradestone in 1828, 

 and the Brundall specimen, which Mr. Lubbock says 

 formed part of the collection of the late Mr. Penrice, are 

 included in these, f but I have also a record in the late 

 Mr. Lombe's notes of one killed at Strumpshaw in June, 

 1824. The siDOcimen, however, belonging to Mr. Gurney, 

 also noticed by Mr. Lubbock as " killed near Norwich," 

 is, as far as I can ascertain its history, decidedly 

 doubtful. Of late years this species has been recognised 

 but once on our coast. On the morning of the 27th of 

 November, 1861, an adult male was picked up at the 

 foot of the lighthouse hill, at Cromer, by one of Mr. 

 Gurney's keepers, who found the bird still ahve, but 

 evidently much injured from flying against the glass, 

 attracted by the glare of the lamps during the previous 

 night, when, half stunned, it had fallen to the ground 

 and fluttered down the hill to the spot where it was 

 picked up. This bird, now in Mr. Gurney's collection 

 at Catton, had a mass of fur in the stomach about the 

 size of a walnut, amongst which was discernible an 

 almost perfect skeleton of a mouse, together with the 

 heads and forceps of several earwigs, and three stout 

 caterpillars nearly an inch in length. The head ex- 

 hibited no marks of injury, and the plumage was per- 

 fect, but the flesh on th^ breast and the point of one 

 wing showed symptoms of having sustained a very 

 severe blow. 



t See Hunt's *' List of Norfolk Birds" in " Stacy's History of 

 Norfolk" (1829). 



* In a catalogue of the late Mr. Stephen Miller's collection of 

 birds, " principally Norfolk shot specimens," I find, amongst other 

 rarities, a Scops eared owl, but whether this was one of those 

 recorded as killed near Yai^mouth, or not, I have been unable to 

 ascertaiQ satisfactorily. 

 g2 



