SHORT-EARED OWL. 123 



a short distance, survey the aggressor, and again resume their 

 flight and cries. The young are barely able to fly by the 

 12th of August, and appear to leave the nest some time 

 before they are able to rise from the ground. I have taken 

 them, on that great day to sportsmen, squatted on the heath 

 like young black game, at no great distance from each other, 

 and always attended by the parent birds. Last year (1831) 

 I found them in their old haunts, to which they appear to 

 return very regularly ; and the female, with a young bird, 

 was procured. The young could only fly for sixty or seven- 

 ty yards." 



Mr. Selby, from finding old birds during summer and on 

 the 12th of August, at which time they were moulting, be- 

 lieves that a few pairs breed on the higher moors of Nor- 

 thumberland, and probably also some on those of Westmore- 

 land and Cumberland. Mr. Hoy, in the Magazine of Na- 

 tural History, says, " I am acquainted with two localities 

 in the south-western part of Norfolk, where pairs of this bird 

 breed ; and T have known several instances of their eggs and 

 young being found. One situation is on a dry heathy soil, 

 the nest placed on the ground amongst high heath ; the 

 other in low fenny ground, among sedge and rushes : a friend 

 of mine procured some eggs from the latter situation during 

 the last summer (1832). The Short-eared Owl is pretty 

 common in many parts of Norfolk during the autumn and 

 winter, the great majority of them retiring northwards in the 

 spring, only leaving a few scattered pairs to breed in this 

 district." 



The Short-eared Owl is also very likely to be the Horned 

 Owl referred to by Mr. Jesse in his most agreeable Glean- 

 ings, the eggs of which have been found in a rabbit burrow 

 in Suffolk, and, the writer adds, " I have found such Owls on 

 the Brighton downs, near a rabbit-warren, without a tree or a 

 shrub near them, squatting on the ground like a hare in her 

 form." 



