314 The Eagle Owl 
sierra | had visited in 1875, and I was scrambling along a steep 
hillside amid the deep cistus and high heath when an Eagle Owl 
skimmed past me carrying something and was quickly lost to view 
over a rocky hillside some hundreds of yards to my front. As the 
bird did not emerge from the valley it had entered, I reckoned it 
had most probably settled somewhere among the crags. So fol- 
lowing it up I proceeded to examine several low cliffs near the 
summit of the hill which seemed to offer likely breeding stations. 
It was the identical spot where I had first seen the Eagle Owl on the 
wing so many years before. It was whilst forcing my way through 
some giant white heath, along a very steeply sloped terrace between 
some big rocks, that I had the good luck to flush the Eagle Owl 
almost to my feet. In a few moments I had found the nest! It was 
nothing more than a shallow basin in the soft earth at the roots of 
the heather and under the shade of a big rock. Save for the steep- 
ness of the hillside and the difficulty of forcing one’s way through the 
heath it was so placed that literally anybody could have reached it. 
In the nest was a fine young Owlet in the early “down” stage, about 
a week old, also an addled egg. Around the nest were many 
pellets of fur and feather whilst a freshly killed water-vole, the 
lower portion of a rabbit, a young weasel and the remains of 
a Peewit lay close alongside the infant which was about 6 in. in 
length. The Peewit was of peculiar interest since these birds, 
although extremely abundant in southern Spain in the winter, 
nearly all depart northwards in March. 
My subsequent education in Eagle Owls and their ways may 
be said to date from this moment. Ten days after this I revisited 
the nest and found the young bird still in the ‘‘down” stage 
although it had doubled in size and had blue quills 1 in, in length 
on its wings, whence the primary feathers were just emerging. 
A week later, judging that the Owlet would have emerged from 
the ‘‘down” sufficiently to ensure its survival in captivity (for, as 
