30 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



1842 ; and another from Staumer Park^ obtained in the 

 same year. 



Mr. Jeffery, in his private notes^ mentions that on the 4th 

 of Marchj 1860^ he saw ten or twelve of these birds in a 

 yew tree at Kiugley Vale, and records in the ' Zoologist/ for 

 1881 (p. 49), that on the 10th of December, 1880, a great 

 many had been brought to a birdstuffcr at Chichester. 

 In Mr. Gordon's 'History of Harting' it is mentioned 

 that the eggs of this species were found in the deserted nest 

 of a crow on West Harting Down {vide p. 253). 



SHORT-EARED OWL. 



Asio accipitrinus. 



1 HAVE in my collection three specimens, all shot by myself, 

 viz., one on Henfield Common, October 13th, 1839; another 

 at Hough Wood in September 1841 ; and a third at Rye 

 Farm, Henfield, while fiyiug close to the ground. Together 

 with this bird I also shot a hare in its form (or seat, as it is 

 more usually called by Sussex farmers and sportsmen), just 

 beyond it : this was in October 1841. I have often met with 

 this bird in the turnip fields and in the stubbles, which were 

 formerly left in Sussex, sometimes even to rot on the 

 ground, but which now, unfortunately for tlie partridge- 

 shooters, may be called non-existent, all corn being cut close 

 to the ground from the first. I once, but only once in this 

 county, put up about forty, from a turnip field, though I have 

 several times in Cambridgeshire seen similar numbers to- 

 gether, probably Avhole flights on their immigration. 



In 1841, I saw a Short-eared Owl, shot near Henfield on 

 the 16th of September, by Mr. A. Smith, Avhich contained 

 the remains of two Skylarks and a short-tailed field vole, 



