BUBO MAXIMUS. 161 



was a small one, not quite two feet in width, terminating abruptly soon 

 beyond the nest, but continued on the side by which we approached. 

 Perpendicular rock above and below, but still the access by no means 

 difficult. 



There was with me a young man, Peter Ehrson, who had a good 

 idea whereabouts the nest would be. Five young ladies, in wide 

 straw hats, were watching us from below. They imitated very well 

 the " co6-ho6 " of the Berg-Uf [Eagle-Owl] in reply to ours. Before 

 we commenced the ascent, while we were debating upon the matter, 

 an Osprey happened to fly along the ridge of rock, upon which one of 

 the Owls gave its beautifully sounding "coo," or "ugh" — the same 

 note that I have heard from the birds in the Zoological Gardens, but 

 with a much finer efiect, softened as it was by distance. As Ehrson 

 and I came near the part of the rock most frequented by the Owls, 

 we found two Hare's feet and other remains. About this time a 

 Berg- Uf sailed below us, giving us a beautiful view of his broad back 

 and mottled wings. He passed in a direction different from that in 

 which we were going, and turned a corner out of sight. A little 

 further on another Berg- Uf left the face of the rock, and flew in the 

 other direction, soon settling, and often turning her head to look at 

 us, flying back a short distance, into such a position that I was able 

 to look at her with my glass and see her satisfactorily. A few paces 

 further Ehrson exclaimed, "There is the nest!" and sure enough 

 there were the two young birds and the e.g^, as mentioned before. 

 We waited an hour in the nest, but the birds did not appear again 

 till we had left the spot. Then the male flew overhead to join the 

 female, and perched upon the extreme top of a spruce-fir, where his 



a range of rock, in which a boy pointed out the spot where an old bird and two 

 young ones had been caught last sLunmer. After a little scrambling, I came to the 

 place from above, and found it to be just at the summit of a precipice, in a recess 

 or ledge of some width. The whole of the nest was well rounded and rather deep, 

 but appeared to have been merely scratched in the turf, and to have had no mate- 

 rials added to the natural bed so formed. There were lying in the hollow some 

 bleached bones of rats and of birds of the size of Partridges. It was close under a 

 low piece of rock, which, however, appeared to afford it so little shelter that the 

 water from the melting snow was dripping into the middle of it. It was not at all 

 dissimilar to the spot which a Golden Eagle would select, unless perhaps rather 

 more exposed. The aspect southerly ; and Mr. [Duff] assures me that the Eagle- 

 Owl usually lives on the sunny side of a rock. So, as I remember, it was in the 

 case of one at least of the nests which Linnseus mentions in his tour ['Lachesis Lap- 

 ponica^ vol. i. p. 39]. In another rock, which we visited this afternoon, were Eavens 

 and Falcons (no doubt Peregrines) ; but I had not a good sight of them. This is 

 the rock whence there is so fine a view of the town of Gothenburg. It also has 

 been the resort of Eagle-Owls, which fly out when a gun is fired near it." — Ed.] 



M 



