46 
The Birds of Pembrokeshire. 
tion, we never missed any of our young Pheasants, and are 
certain that the Owls never molested them, confining them- 
selves almost exclusively to the rats and mice. One summer 
a regrettable incident occurred.. Passing one morning through 
one of the covers we detected an old Crows’ nest in an oak tree 
we had not before noticed, and in order to ascertain if it was 
occupied or not, we fired a shot at it, when immediately great 
was the commotion in the nest, and a Brown Owl fluttered to 
our feet with one of her wings slightly injured. We got our 
man to climb the tree, when he found that we had slain the five 
Owlets that were in the nest by our unlucky shot. After in- 
terring these victims at the foot of the tree, we carried the Owl 
carefully home, and placing her in an empty stable at once set 
some traps and supplied her with plenty of mice. As soon as 
night arrived she was speedily discovered by her disconsolate 
spouse, and so great was the hooting kept up by the two birds 
that no one who slept on that side of the house could get any 
rest. Inthe morning it was found that the injured Owl had 
contrived to escape by dragging herself through a wonderfully 
small hole at the bottom of the stable door, and we saw no more 
of her for a day or two, until we discovered that she had found 
a retreat in a corner of the shrubbery, where she was fed re- 
gularly all through the summer by the male bird, who not only 
showed his devotion in this way to his injured partner, but also 
took to himself a second wife, and successfully brought off a 
family of Owlets in an old Crows’ nest in a Scotch fir, not far 
removed from the sanctuary of wife No. 1. 
SCOP’S OWL, Scofs giu.—Accidental visitor; very rare. Only 
one instance of its occurrence. A beautiful specimen was 
caught by a labouring man near Pembroke in the spring of 
1868. He was trimming a hedge at the time when it fluttered 
out from the bottom. Mr. Dix saw it in Mr, Tracy’s shop. 
MARSH HARRIER, Circus ceruginosus—Formerly a common 
resident, but now only a rare accidental visitor. When we were 
shooting Snipe near Stone Hall, in the winter of 1880, a fine 
