EAGLE OWL. 141 
a screech in the breeding season. The young utter a continual 
hissing and piping noise. 
Nidification commences the latter end of March—only one 
brood is produced in the year. The female sits about five weeks. 
Incubation begins in April, and the young are hatched in May. 
The nest is very large, and is placed on rocks or old ruins, 
amid the desolate sterility of the bleak hill, or the wild 
unsheltered mountain. It is composed of branches and sticks, 
and is lined with leaves and straw. Occasionally a hollow 
in the bare earth answers the purpose. The same eyrie is 
frequently resorted to year after year. 
The eggs are two or three in number, white or bluish white, 
and, like those of all the Owls, of a rotund form, and, as 
described by Meyer, of a rough chalky appearance. 
Male; weight, about seven pounds; length, from about two 
feet to two feet two inches; bill, dull black, tinged with greyish 
blue, and paler at the base: it is nearly hid at the base by 
the feathers. Cere, dusky, concealed by the feathers; iris, 
bright orange, it is fringed around the margin with short 
bristly feathers. The feathers of the head are mottled, reddish 
brown or yellow, streaked and spotted, especially down the 
middle, with multitudinous dark brown specks and spots: the 
centre of each feather is dark, which widens at the tips, and 
is shaded off and mottled at the sides. ‘The tufts are formed 
of from seven or eight to twelve dark feathers, barred with 
light brown on the inner webs. They are about two inches 
and a half in length beyond the surface of the rest of the 
plumage. The face light brown, speckled with greyish black 
and white beneath; the ruff is indistinct and incomplete, 
extending only from a little above the ear to the chin. Neck, 
as the head, but more tinged with red, and some of the feathers 
only spotted; nape, the same; chin, white, a band of mottled 
and barred feathers—a continuation of the ruff, between it 
and the throat, which is also white, spotted with black. Breast, — 
above, light brown, ferruginous yellow, and greyish, streaked 
with dark brown on the lower part, and towards the sides 
irregularly and numerously barred on each feather with the 
same, the shafts being black; back, as the head. 
The wings are very large, broad and rounded; they expand 
to the width of about five feet one inch; underneath they 
are greyish yellow, barred and dotted with dusky brown: 
greater and lesser wing coverts, as the back. Primaries, as 
the head, but barred transversely with brownish black, the 
