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Xll. Singular Injlance of the Attachment of Birds of Vrey 

 to their Young. By M. Cronstedt. From New Tranf- 

 a&ions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm., 

 Vol. X. 



. Pt. Cronftedt refided feveral years on a farm in Suder- 

 mania, near a fteep mountain, on the fummit of which two 

 eagle-owls (ftrix bubo L) had their neft. One day, in the 

 month of July, one of the young owls having quitted the neft 

 was caught by fome of his fervants. This bird, considering 

 the fcafon of the year, was well feathered ; but the down ap- 

 peared here and there between thofe feathers which had not 

 yet attained their full growth. After it was caught, it was 

 Ihut up in a large hen-coop, and next morning M. Cronftedt 

 found a young partridge lying dead before the door of the 

 coop. He immediately concluded that this provifion had 

 been brought thither by the old owls, which no doubt had 

 been making fearch in the night-time for the loft young 

 one, and might have been led to the place of its confine- 

 ment by its cry. f ins turned out to have been actually 

 the cafe ; for M. Cronftedt found that the fame mark of at- 

 tention was repeated every night for fourteen days. The 

 game which the old ones carried to it confifted chiefly of 

 young partridges, for the moft part newly killed, but fome- 

 times a little fpoiled. One time a moor-fowl was brought 

 to the voung owl, fo frefh that it was ftill warm under the 

 wings : a putrid ftinking lamb was alio brought. M. Cron- 

 ftedt fuppofes that the fpoiled ftefh had already lain a long 

 time in the neft of the old owls, and that they brought it 

 merely becaufe they had no better provifion at the time. He 

 and his fervant tried to watch feveral nights, in order that 

 {hey might obferve through a window when this fnpply was 

 depofited ; but their plan did not fucceed, and it would ap- 

 pear that thefe owls, which are very fharp-fighted, had dif- 

 covered the moment when the window wa ! 3 not watched, as 

 food was found to have been depofited for the young before 



the 



