2 NOTES FROM NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK. 



quarter ounces avoirdupois. Prof. Newton, in his edition of 

 * Yarrell's British Birds,' gives the weight of the adult male as 

 six ounces ; Montagu says five ounces ; the latter authority, 

 in my opinion, being more correct. 



On May 25th I found a nestling of the Long-Eared Owl 

 sitting on the end of a fallen spruce. It had apparently just 

 left the nest. Two days after I made a careful search in 

 the same spot, and found a second young one sitting very quiet 

 and close on a top branch of a tall fir, but could see no signs of 

 the nest or old ])irds. I found a dead chaffinch without head or 

 tail at the foot of a tree close at hand, freshly killed, and dropped 

 by one of the old birds. The young had their stomachs quite 

 full. In one I found the remains of a Thrush, and in the other 

 the remains of a Bank Vole, and as many as three adult 

 Chaffinches. On the 28th, the following day, I made another long 

 and careful search for the nest and rest of the young without 

 success ; they had all evidently left the nest and shifted to another 

 part of the wood. I have repeatedly noticed how quiet young Hawks 

 and Owls are when being supplied with food by the parents. 



The Little Owl, Noctua passei-ina, from its singular habits 

 and grotesque actions, has for some years been a favourite with 

 me. If taken from the nest when young it is easily reared, soon 

 becoming very tame. I have kept some four and five years. In 

 a state of nature their food consists principally of young birds, 

 small mammals, and insects. In confinement, whenever any of 

 the above are not easily procurable, I find that raw lean beef is 

 a good substitute, of which it soon gets very fond, even preferring 

 it to other food. I have occasionally varied its diet with beetles, 

 moths, grasshoppers, butterflies, caterpillars, lizards, water- 

 newts, and living as well as dead fish, such as minnows and 

 small roach. Feathers and fur, as well as bones and other 

 refuse, are (as usual with the Raptores) thrown up in pellets of 

 an oblong shape. Mr. J. H. Gurney had a pair of these birds in 

 confinement, in 1851, that nested, and laid four eggs about the 

 middle of May. Two of these they soon broke, but hatched the 

 other two early in June. These nestlings did not long survive, 

 Mr. Gurney being unable to say how they disappeared ; he is 

 inclined to think the old birds devoured them. Although I have 

 been the possessor of quite a number of Little Owls at different 

 times, and rather successful in obtaining prizes for them as cage 



