LONGEABED, SHORTEARED, AND TAWNY-OWIJ9 



*<> tar. no satisfactory explanation thereof has been found. An able 

 summary, too long for quotation, was given of this subject bySir Digby 

 Pigott in the Ctmtemporary Review, 1908, from which it appears that 

 similar luminous birds have been seen in other parts of England, 

 though of these no detailed or careful records have been given. 



LONGEARED, SHORTEARED, AND TAWNY-OWLS 



These three species differ much in their habits, though they all 

 agree in evading, as far as is possible, the neighbourhood of man thus 

 (littering from the barn-owl. In the matter of habitat, for example, 

 the longeared and shorteared forms are the very antithesis of one 

 another, the former agreeing with the tawny and the latter with the 

 snowy-owl. And it was apparently this fact that led Seebohm to 

 divorce the long and shorteared-owls in his History of British Birds. 

 This is the more remarkable, since it was his practice to make a great 

 show of considering structural characters which he never understood 

 in all his writings. A very little first-hand knowledge of the facts 

 would have shown him the absurdity of such a divorce, and the danger 

 of employing habits as a factor in classification. These two birds, in 

 th ir pterylosis, the structure of the external ear, their osteology, and 

 anatomy generally, differ one from another only in small particulars ; 

 though in their coloration they are less alike. Both, like the eagle and 

 snowy-owls, have " ears " or " horns," formed of long, erectile feathers, 

 springing from the crown on either side, but in the shorteared and 

 snowy-owls and especially in the latter they are very short These 

 are merely " ornaments." The species here compared also agree in 

 having the legs feathered down to the toes, and in this particular the 

 tawny-owl is also included. 



The longeared-owl, it is to be noted, is a forest lover, and for 

 choice seems to favour plantations of spruce and Scots fir, and it has 

 extended its range in this country in keeping with the increase of 



VOL. II. 3 P 



