365 
Two nests which Sir William Jardine found on an upland 
moor in Dumfriesshire, and which contained five eggs, were 
formed upon the ground among the heath, the bottom of the 
nest scraped, until the fresh earth appeared, on which the eggs 
were placed, without any lining or other accessory covering. 
Audubon says—“ The only nest of this kind that I have found 
contained four eggs of a dull bluish white, and of a somewhat 
elongated or elliptical form, an inch and a half in length, and 
one inch and one-eighth in breadth. The nest which was 
placed under a low bush and covered over by tall grass, through 
which a path had been made by the bird, was formed of dry 
grass, raked together in a slovenly manner and quite flat, 
but covering a large space.” 
Hewitson figures a broad, oval, bluish white egg, 1:68 in 
length, by 1:3 in width. 
This species, so common throughout India, would not appear 
to extend to Ceylon; and though by no means uncommon in 
Lower Bengal, Assam and British Burmah, would not seem 
to extend southwards to the Malay Peninsula or the Archi- 
pelago. One of the most widely distributed of its whole family, 
this species occurs almost throughout North America, through- 
out Europe, the islands of the Mediterranean, portions of North 
Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, in Russian Asia, 
almost to the mouths of the Amoor, Northern China and Japan. 
In many of these localities, as in the plains of India, it is merely 
a winter visitant, and I have been unable to ascertain the most 
southern limit at which it has been found breeding. Radde 
mentions, that it is a common bird throughout the south of Hast 
Siberia, where he often found it breeding, and that in the 
Daurian Steppes, he found fresh eggs as early as the 20th 
April, and others scarcely incubated by the 25th of May. 
It seems scarcely likely that this species breeds in India, 
south of the Snowy Range, but the high grassy table-lands of 
Thibet are probably the brooding haunts of the myriads of 
short-eared Owls, which are so widely distributed over the plains 
of India, during the cold season. 
