EAGLE OWL. 189 
overpowered ; whilst fawns, hares, and rabbits form a prominent feature 
of his diet. Yet he also takes much more lowly game, and hunts for the 
various “small deer” which haunt his wild solitudes, as mice, rats, and 
moles. The Jays and Crows, so abundant in northern forests, also form 
part of his fare; and in more cultivated districts he preys on Pheasants 
and Partridges. 
This Owl appears to bear confinement well, and is a bird constantly to 
be seen in menageries and birdfanciers’ shops, and has bred in confine- 
ment at Arundel Castle and other places. Mr. E. Fountaine, of Easton, 
near Norwich, has been singularly successful in his treatment of this bird 
in captivity, and has induced it to breed and rear its progeny; in ‘The 
Ibis’ for 1859, p. 273, a detailed description and full particulars will be 
found of the nesting of this species in his aviary. The Eagle Owl must be 
a bird of great longevity; for he mentions that the original hen bird, from 
which he had so many eggs, had been kept twenty years in confinement 
before she came into his possession. 
The Eagle Owl is an early breeder, and commences to lay in March or 
early in April. It is essentially a forest-bird, generally breeding on some 
strong branch or fork of a tree. It seldom, if ever, makes a nest of 
its own; but takes possession of any old nest that it can find, rarely 
choosing one more than thirty feet from the ground. In the forests of 
Pomerania, where it is frequently met with, it usually breeds in a tree; 
but the eggs have very often been found in a slight hollow scratched in 
the ground at the foot of the tree. It is very shy and wary at the nest, 
and seems to possess as keen a sight to detect the presence of an enemy as 
the most diurnal bird. Von Homeyer related to me his repeated efforts to 
shoot the old bird at the nest; but, although he concealed himself as much 
as possible, she always caught a glimpse of him before she got within shot, 
and turned round and flew off. In the more mountainous forests, where 
there are rocks, it seems to prefer a nesting-place upon some ledge or 
convenient shelf; but even in such a locality the eggs are not always laid 
on the rocks. Wolley mentions two clutches in Lapland taken from the 
ground under the shelter of the roots of a fallen tree. 
In the Parnassus [ visited two nesting-places of this bird, from one of 
which I obtained an egg, and from the other shot one of the parent birds. 
In neither case was much nest made. The situation chosen was in one of 
those clefts or caves so common in limestone rocks; and apparently it was 
used as a roosting-place, for in both cases the young broods had flown. 
Linneus met with an Eagle-Owl’s nest on the higher hills of Lapland, 
which contained an addled egg and two young birds. But the most graphic 
and minute description of the nest of this fine bird is that by Wolley :— 
“Tt was on the 20th of May, and after climbing to the mysterious cave of 
Skulberg, that our road lay under a steep mountain-side broken up into 
