29° TENGMALMS OWL. 



and in those of the Alps, from Styria and the Tyrol westward to 

 the Vosges, the Jura, and the mountains of Dauphine ; while there 

 is evidence that it inhabits the Pyrenees, though it is not found 

 further south in Spain. In other parts of Europe — including Heligo- 

 land — it is chiefly a migrant. Eastward, it appears to range across 

 the pine-forests of Siberia to the Pacific ; and in the woods 

 of Arctic America it is represented by a slightly darker form of 

 very doubtful specific distinctness, known to separatists as Nydala 

 richardsoni. 



Our earliest knowledge of the breeding-habits of this, as of so 

 many other Arctic species, was derived from Wolley, who found that 

 in Lapland it occupied the iyllas or iius — nest-boxes formed of logs 

 hollowed out at either end, with a hole cut in the side — set up by 

 the inhabitants for the use of the Golden-eye Ducks; it also deposits 

 its eggs in holes in trees, often in some former abode of the Black 

 Woodpecker. The eggs, laid between the beginning of May and 

 end of June, are 4-6, and exceptionally 10, in number; they are 

 smooth, and white in colour: average measurements i"28 by i in. 

 The food — consisting of lemmings, mice and other rodents, with large 

 beetles and small birds — is generally procured during the latter half 

 of the day ; but it is hardly necessary to add that sunshine does not 

 incommode a bird which passes the summer in the continuous 

 light of the high north. The call-not-e is described by Wheelwright 

 as a soft whistle, only uttered in the evening and by night. 



The adult male has the upper parts chocolate-brown, with small 

 white spots on the top of the head, and larger white patches on the 

 back and wing-coverts ; facial disk nearly complete, dull white with 

 a dark outer ring; under parts greyish-white, irregularly barred and 

 streaked with brown ; legs and toes thickly covered with whitish 

 brown-speckled feathers (in the Little Owl the feathers on the legs 

 are short and the toes have merely bristles) ; bill yellowish-white. 

 Length 8-5 to 9 in. The female is slightly larger than the male and 

 has the white spots less pronounced ; v/hile the young are much 

 darker than the adults, and are chiefly spotted on the wings and tail. 

 A remarkable characteristic of this Owl, as shown by Professor 

 Collett of Christiania, is that the ear-regions in the skull itself, as 

 well as the orifices, are unequal in size. 



The late Sir William M. E. Milner recorded (Zool. p. 7104) the 

 occurrence of the North American Saw-whet Owl, Nydala acadica, 

 near Beverley in Yorkshire. He was probably mistaken or, as 

 frequently happened, imposed upon. 



