60 STRIGIDiE. 
some timej aud ultimately sent it to Lord Lilford^ in whose 
possession it paired with another from Norway. I also had 
three young from a nest near Castellar, about eighteen miles 
from Gibraltar. When I had these Owls, the wild ones used 
to come at night close to the cage and answer the call of 
those that w^ere shut up. Its loud, melancholy, human- 
sounding note is sometimes to be heard all night long up 
the Rock, and is usually supposed to be the cry of the apes. 
They breed very early : judging from the size of the 
young which I obtained, they would lay about the end of 
January ; and such is, I was informed, the case. I never 
could succeed in discovering the nest. I know of several re- 
puted nesting-places, but on examining them found nothing 
but bones of rabbits, rats, partridges, and small birds, never 
even seeing one of the Owls, though the charcoal-burners (or 
carboneros) assured me that they had taken the young from 
these places. One man, however, said that these Owls bring 
the young from their nests to these caves. The Rev. John 
White mentions the Eagle Owl as occurring at Gibraltar 
during his residence there about 1776. 
41. Asio OTus, riem. Long-eared Owl. 
Spanish. Carabo. 
Not obtained near Gibraltar, this tree-haunting Owl is 
more common towards Cordova and Granada. I only met 
with it once in winter, in the Goto del Rey. 
42. Asio accipitrinus (Pall.). Short-eared Owl. 
Moorish. El hama, Fav. Spanish. Carabo. 
" This species occurs less abundantly than the Cape-Owl 
{A. capensis), being found on passage in small flights on open 
and wet ground. Some breed near Tangier; but the remain- 
der cross to Europe in February and March, returning in 
November. This Owl interbreeds with the Cape-Owl, pro- 
ducing hybrids which only differ from that species in having 
the front of the facial disk, the throat and tarsi whitish, while 
the irides are half yellow. The Arab chasseurs confound the 
two species under the name of ' el hama;' but they are easily 
