SHORT-EARED OWL. BARN OWL. 51 



instances of their eggs and yonng being found. One 

 situation is on a dry heathy soil, the next placed on the 

 ground amongst high heath ; the other is on low fenny 

 ground amongst sedge and rushes. A friend of mine 

 procured some eggs from the latter situation during the 

 last summer (1832)." Mr. Alfred Newton possesses 

 eggs of this owl taken in Feltwell fen in the summer of 

 1854 (Ootheca Wolleyana, p. 159) ; and in a recent 

 letter to myself he writes — "In the first week of August, 

 1854, my brother Edward and I found on a heath at 

 Elveden, not three miles from the Norfolk boundary, 

 two young birds of this species, nearly fall grown, but 

 unable to fly. We searched in vain for the nest in 

 which they had been hatched, hoping to find an addled 

 egg in it. Though we visited the place several times 

 only one of the parents appeared. This bird was ex- 

 tremely fierce in its behaviour, swooping close to us, and 

 with plaintive screeches threatening the dogs by which 

 we were accompanied." This, as far as I can ascer- 

 tain, was the last instance of their nesting even in that 

 district, but in the vicinity of the coast, as at Horsey, 

 near Yarmouth, where, as Mr. Eising informs me, they 

 used to be met with occasionally during the summer 

 months, they had previously ceased to breed for some 

 years. In the autumn of 1859, I was shown a bird of 

 this species that had been picked up imder the telegraph 

 wires, one wing having been severed during its noc- 

 turnal flittings, as is not -unfrequently the case with 

 the woodcock and snipe in their migratory movements. 



STRIX FLAMMEA, Linnseus. 



BARN OWL. 



The Bam Owl is resident with us throughout the 

 year, but I wish I could add that the term " common" 

 h2 



