56 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



always placed on the rotten wood, which in most cases 

 formed a sufficient bedding. If all the eggs were taken, as 

 was the case in 1854, the hen bird laid again in another 

 tree. We never found more than four eggs in the nest. 

 These often, but not always, proved to have been incubated 

 for different lengths of time, showing that the hen bird 

 sometimes began to sit as soon as the first egg was laid ; 

 but we could never divine what might be the cause of 

 this irregularity of habit. After the young birds had 

 left the nests, it was some time before they began to 

 shift for themselves, and they used to sit in the shadiest 

 trees for the best part of the summer, uttering a 

 plaintive note like 'keewick,' night and day, almost 

 without cessation, to attract the attention of their 

 parents, who would assiduously bring them the spoils of 

 the chase. * * * Late in the spring of 1859, to 

 the great regret of those who knew them, the old birds 

 suddenly disappeared, and I never succeeded in ascer- 

 taining their fate. I think it due to their memory to 

 insert this account of their habits, the more so as I fear 

 the species is daily becoming more uncommon in Eng- 

 land." In its first plumage this bird is grey, changing 

 to brown or tawny as it attains maturity, and again 

 becoming grey in advanced age, but I never remember 

 to have seen a Norfolk killed specimen in this latter 

 stage. An unusually fine pair, killed at Stratton 

 Strawless in 1858, weighed together 2 J Ibs. the female 

 1 \ lb., and the male 1 Ib. Many authentic instances are 

 on record of the brown owl feeding its young on fish, 

 taken by itself in its nocturnal forays ; and the following 

 singular eccentricity in the breeding habits of this 

 species is thus recorded by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher : 

 6 ' We have known this owl to nest in a deserted rabbit 

 or fox's hole on the side of a wooded hill near the 

 coast. The nest was about two feet from the mouth of 

 the hole." 



