SHORT-EARED OWL. 167 
STRIX BRACHYOTUS. 
SHORT-EARED OWL. 
(Pratt 7.) 
Strix noctua major, Briss. Orn. i. p. 511 (1760). 
Stryx accipitrina, Pall. Reise Russ. Reichs, i. p. 455 (1771). 
Noctua minor, Gmel. Nov. Comm. Petrop. xy. p. 447, pl. 12 (1771). 
Strix brachyotus, Forst. Phil. Trans. 1xii. p. 384 (1772); et auctorum plurimorum 
—Gmelin, Wilson, Vieillot, Naumann, Temminck, Roux, Swainson, Richardson, 
Audubon, Schlegel, Yarrell, Sundevall, (Gould), (Gray), (Kaup), (Jerdon), (Gur- 
ney), (Hume), (Finsch), (Swinhoe), &e. &e. 
Strix arctica, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. iii. pl. 51 (1788). 
Strix palustris, Bechst. Naturg. Deutschl. ii. p. 344 (1791). 
Strix tripennis, Schrank, Fauna Boica, i. p. 112 (1798). 
Strix caspia, Steph. Shaw’s Gen. Zool. vii. pt. 2, p. 272 (1809). 
Otus microcephalus, Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. §e. Brit. Mus. p. 11 (1816). 
Strix brachyura, Nilss. Orn. Suec. i. p. 62 (1817). 
Otus brachyotos (Forst.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 2, p. 57 (1826). 
Strix sandwichensis, Blovh. Byron’s Voy. of H.M.S. ‘ Blonde,’ App. p. 250 (1826). 
Brachyotus palustris (Bechst.), Bonap. Comp. List B. Ew. § N. Amer. p. 7 (1838). 
Asio brachyotus (Forst.), Macgill. Brit. Birds, iii. p. 461 (1840). 
Aegolius brachyotus (Forst.), Keys. § Blas. Wirb. Eur. p. xxxiii (1840). 
Asio sandyicensis (Bloxh.), Blyth, Ibis, 1863, p. 27. 
Asio accipitrinus (Pall.), Newt. ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 163 (1872). 
Strix ulula, Linn. apud Boddaert, Gmelin, Pallas, Lesson, &c. 
The Short-eared Owl is a regular winter visitor to Great Britain and 
Treland, and has not yet been completely exterminated from the fens, 
where a few still breed. It is generally distributed on moorlands and 
marshes in the north of England, Scotland, the Western Isles, the 
Orkneys, and the Shetlands. 
Outside our islands its range is almost cosmopolitan. It appears to be 
only a summer visitor to Holland, North Germany, Scandinavia, and North 
Russia, passing through France on migration. In South Europe it is 
principally known as a winter visitant ; but in South Russia and the Cau- 
casus many apparently remain to breed. It probably also breeds in some 
parts of Africa, although its distribution there is comparatively little known. 
It has been recorded from several parts of North Africa, is a regular 
winter visitant to North-east Africa, and an example has been obtained 
in Natal. Eastwards it is a summer visitor throughout Siberia, passing 
through Persia, Turkestan, and Japan on migration, and wintering in India 
and Burma. It does not appear to have occurred in Australia, or in any 
of the islands of the Southern Pacific; but it is said to be a resident 
on the Sandwich Islands. On the American continent it is a summer 
visitor to Alaska, Canada, and Greenland up to about lat. 70°, wintering 
