iq6 memoirs of the nuttall ornithological club. 



for hatching and rearing its young. Thus, while the eggs are usually laid early 

 in April, the young are seldom seen on wing before the first of July. 



94. Asio accipitrinus (Pall). 

 Short-eared Owl. 



Transient visitor, uncommon in autumn, rare in spring. One instance of occurrence in 

 midwinter. 



SEASONAL OCCURREN'CE. 



March 15, 1901, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Faxon. 

 April 15, 1901, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Faxon. 



September 24, 18S1, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, H. M. Spehiian. 

 October 1 5 — November 30. (Winter.) 



Although the Short-eared Owl is found regularly and at times really 

 numerously — especially in late autumn — in the salt marshes and sand dunes 

 along the seacoast of Massachusetts, it is uncommon at most inland localities, 

 and my notes, covering a period of more than thirty years, record less than a 

 dozen instances of its appearance in the Cambridge Region. Nearly all of these 

 relate to the Fresh Pond Swamps. Here, in the broad, open meadows lying 

 between the GlaciaUs and Little River, I have repeatedly started Short-eared Owls 

 in October or November while looking for Wilson's Snipe. I have a specimen 

 which was killed in these marshes on April 4, 1872, and Mr. Walter Faxon tells 

 me that he saw another there on April 15, 1901. A third, in Mr. O. A. Loth- 

 rop's collection, was taken by Mr. Henry C. Wells near the shores of Smith's 

 Pond on February 16, 1901. The specimen last mentioned is the only one 

 known to me which has been found in the Cambridge Region in midwinter, but 

 on December 1 2, 1 890, I shot a bird about a mile to the westward of Rock 

 Meadow, ilushing it in an opening surrounded by birches, where the ground was 

 broken into hillocks and carpeted with moss. It is unusual for Owls of the 

 present species to be seen in or near woodland of any kind. I have another 

 specimen, however, that I killed at Lake Umbagog in a dense thicket of young 

 spruces and balsam firs. 



Mr. H. W. Henshaw tells me that Short -eared Owls occurred sparingly in 

 the Cambridgeport Marshes thirty or forty years ago. There can be little 

 doubt that they visited the Longfellow Marshes also, although I have no definite 

 evidence that such was actually the case. 



