Aa Wi 
Pe ae NEN SN @ a EES: 
JANUARY 1883, 
AutHouGH I am well aware how little I have to offer, I will 
now give some notes on the autumn migration of 1882. 
This year a singularly large number of Owls passed through 
the neighbourhood of Prague, a fact that may be ascribed to 
the extraordinary abundance of the field-mice on the culti- 
vated ground by the western bank of the Moldau, close to the 
town. 
On October 14th, as I was walking through a not very 
large but extremely fine field of turnips, Owls rose at every 
step, and after a feeble flight settled in them again; so, 
in order to see what species they belonged to, I shot one, and 
found that I had killed an old light-coloured male of the 
Short-eared Owl ( Otus brachyotus). 
In previous years I had merely seen isolated specimens of 
this bird in our part of the country, and often none at all, 
but on that occasion there were at least forty of them in that 
one place. 
