OWL SECRETS 
303 
and we will now consider the two medium-sized fellows, but 
only briefly, as I ha^'e not been able, as yet, to photograph 
them in the East. They are the Long-eared and Short-eared 
Owls. The latter is a bird of the open marshes, particularly 
on the seacoast, and is not at all plenty, save as a migrant. 
I have never seen its nest in New England, though it is 
known to breed at places where I have been, such as Martha’s 
Vineyard and Chatham. But in autumn I have often flushed 
it singly from marshes or bushy tracts along the coast, and 
sometimes inland. 
The Long-eared Owl is much more common and breeds 
regularly in pineries and cedar swamps, but it is so retiring 
that it is largely overlooked. Few naturalists have ever heard 
its hooting. Early one morning, years ago, I heard a long- 
drawn, wailing cry, twice or thrice repeated, that seemed to 
proceed from a cedar swamp, near the Weld farm. West 
Roxbury, Massachusetts. Investigation revealed a Long-eared 
Owl roosting in the dense cedars, the probable author of the 
sounds. In such situations I have often found them, and 
there they sometimes breed, as, indeed, they did in this par¬ 
ticular swamp, with the Night Herons, though they often, 
perhaps usually in New England, choose tall pines, content¬ 
ing themselves with an old nest. 
No owl’s nest, save that of the Screech Owl, perhaps, is 
harder to find. The reason is that the bird usually can neither 
be seen from the ground nor made to fly. As there are 
hundreds of old nests in the evergreen groves and swamps, 
it is impossible for the searcher to climb them all, and thus 
he may pass under the l^rooding owl without knowing it. A 
friend of mine, traversing a grove through which I had often 
gone, happened to notice on one of the old squirrels’ nests 
a clinging fragment of gray down. He could start nothing, 
but finally climbed the tree, and when close up to the nest. 
