The Harriers and Owls. 269 



myself been fortunate enough in the Forest to find their 

 nest, but I have often watched a pair on Black Knoll and 

 Beaulieu Heath skimming over the ground, pausing to hover 

 just above the furze, then flying forward for some ten or twenty 

 yards, turning themselves suddenly sideways ; and then again, 

 for a minute, poising, kestrel-like, beating each bush, and 

 every now and then going up a little higher in the air, but 

 quickly coming down close over the cover. 



Passing from the falcons, let us look at the owls, of which 

 the Forest possesses four, if not more, varieties. The com- 

 monest is the tawny {Strix aliico), whose hooting fills the woods 

 all through the winter. At Stoney Cross I have repeatedly 

 heard, on a still November night, a pair of them calling to one 

 another at least two miles apart. It not only breeds in holes 

 of trees, but in old crows'-nests, and will often, when its eggs 

 are taken, lay again within a week. The barn owl, strange 

 to say, is not muclr more abundant than the long-eared {Strix 

 otus), which breeds in the old holly -bushes, generally taking 

 some magpie's nest, where it lays three eggs. Barer still is 

 the short-eared {Strix hrachyotus) , which visits the Forest in 

 November, staying through the winter, and in the day-time 

 rising out of the dry heath and withered fern.* 



Leaving the owls, let us notice some of the other birds. 

 Many a time, in the cold days of March, have I seen the wood- 

 cocks, in the new oak plantations of Wootton, carrying their 

 young under their wing, clutching them up in their large claws. 

 Here, on the ground, they lay their eggs, which are of the 

 same colour as the withered oak-leaves — a dull ochre, spotted 



* For some account ol' the little owl {Strix passer ina)^ see Appendix III. 

 under the section of Stragglers, p. 314. 



269 



