48 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



were entirely covered with white down when first 

 hatched. When they were about three weeks old they 

 began to exchange the first or white down for the 

 second down, which was of a brownish grey colour, and 

 at the age of about five weeks the feathers began to 

 appear, and the young owls are now (July 23rd) able 

 to fly up to their perches, are nearly as large as their 

 parents, and, in fact, much in the same stage as 

 the specimens usually imported from Norway at this 

 time of year by the London bird dealers." In the 

 "Ibis" also for 1859 (vol. 1, p. 273), will be found 

 a yearly statement from the pen of Mr. Fountaine 

 himself, continued down to the spring of that year, 

 which shows that the usual number of eggs laid has 

 been three, and, in a majority of cases, three young 

 have been hatched, the time of nesting varying between 

 the months of January and April, whilst the period of 

 incubation lasted about thirty days, and one week 

 usually elapsed, in addition, between hatching the first 

 egg and the last. From 1855 to 1859 two nests were 

 made in each season, owing to the first batch of eggs 

 being destroyed through the severity of the weather, 

 having been laid either in January or February, and in 

 1855 even the second laying shared the same fate, and 

 for the first and only time no young were reared. The 

 last six nests, in 1857, 1858, and 1859, contained but 

 two eggs respectively, and Mr. Fountaine considers that 

 in several instances the young birds perished in his 

 absence from home from being egg-bound, as on one 

 occasion he extracted a nestling from the shell, though 

 it took him three days to accomplish, and this one lived 

 and was brought up. Of the young birds thus reared, 

 year after year, three pairs had at different times laid 

 eggs and sat on them, but with no result till the year 

 1859, when, as further noticed in the same volume 

 of the " Ibis" (p. 473), three eggs were laid and one 



