170 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



and a half inches long. In the meanwhile, the old bird 

 was uttering that hoarse worried note from time to 

 time, somewhat like a partridge's, flying past from side 

 to side and alighting amid the trees or bushes. When 

 I had descended, I detected one young one two-thirds 

 grown perched on a branch of the next tree, about fif- 

 teen feet from the ground, which was all the while star- 

 ing at me with its great yellow eyes. It was gray with 

 gray horns and a dark beak. As I walked past near it, 

 it turned its head steadily, always facing me, without 

 moving its body, till it looked directly the opposite 

 way over its back, but never offered to fly. Just then 

 I thought surely that I heard a puppy faintly barking 

 at me four or five rods distant amid the bushes, hav- 

 ing tracked me into the swamp, — what what^ what 

 what what. It was exactly such a noise as the barking 

 of a very small dog or perhaps a fox. But it was the 

 old owl, for I presently saw her making it. She re- 

 peated \_&ic\ perched quite near. She was generally 

 reddish-brown or partridge-colored, the breast mottled 

 with dark brown and fawn-color in downward strings 

 \sic\^ and had plain fawn-colored thighs. 



SHORT- EARED OWL 



Dec. 8, 1853. At midday (3 p. m.) saw an owl fly 

 from toward the river and alight on Mrs. Richardson's 

 front-yard fence. Got quite near it, and followed it to 

 a rock on the heap of dirt at Collier's cellar. A rather 

 dark brown owl above (with a decided owl head (and 

 eyes), though not very broad), with longitudinal tawny 

 streaks (or the reverse), none transverse, growing 



