A FEW AUTUMN NOTES. 575 
the right bank of the Moldau and near Prague I saw no 
Short-eared and only a very few Long-eared Owls, though L 
often rambled through them at that time. 
On the 23rd and 24th of November the weather was quite 
spring-like, with a strong south wind. The snow melted very 
quickly, and winter, which had shown itself so unmistakably, 
again completely disappeared. 
On the 25th I once more went to the spot so often men- 
tioned, where to my no small surprise I found considerable 
numbers of both species of Owl; and next day I saw several 
in a wood near Pardubitz in the east of Bohemia, but they 
were all Long-eared. On the 27th both species were very 
abundant in a small patch of oaks a few miles north of Prague. 
These birds must have been on migration, for | found many of 
them in the surrounding fields, where the hollows, ditches, 
mounds, and stone-pits afforded them but scanty cover, and 
they were even on the ploughed land. 
At the end of November I could no longer ramble about 
the neighbourhood, for I had to travel for some days; and on 
my return in the beginning of December I found that the 
whole country was covered with deep snow, and that the 
severe cold had brought on winter again. 
On December 6th I met with a great many Owls of both 
kinds in two little woods north of Prague. This surprised 
me, for though the first snowfall had quite driven them away, 
they had remained during the second, which was much 
heavier and lasted longer. 
It struck me as remarkablé that at a time when there were 
so many mice the Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus) 
should be so very uncommon. In other years, even when 
comparatively few were ravaging the fields, the first of 
these birds came at the end of October, while the main body 
followed from the beginning to the middle of November, and 
every year there were days when numbers of them might be 
