LONGEARED, 8HORTEARED, AND TAWNY-OWLS 



of two birds which, on account of the draining of the marsh lands, 

 :imi tin- rilling of nests by egg-collectors, have become very rare 

 in East Anglia. In one case the female hovered at a considerable 

 height over the nest, "as if she would assure herself we had not 

 taken her eggs. . . . When she had apparently adjusted the focus 

 of her great eyes upon them, she fluttered her wings in a very 

 agitated manner for a few seconds ; whether this peculiar move- 

 ment \\as the result of her great anxiety to return to cover them 

 1 1. 'i 1 1 the chill evening air, or an active expression of her delight at 

 seeing them still in the nest, or an attempt to attract our attention 

 in order to lure us away from the spot, it is difficult to determine." It 

 could scarcely have been from the last-named motive, or she would 

 not have hovered directly above them. The bird's silence on this 

 occasion it remarkable, for, as the Rev. F. C. R Jourdain, writing to 

 me on this theme, remarks : " The shorteared-owl is the one British 

 species which is really noisy when its young are approached. The 

 others snap their bills, and give other signs of distress, but do not 

 utter a note, while the shorteared-owl rises high in the air, even in 

 bright sunshine, and sails overhead uttering from time to time an 

 angry bark, which Coward syllables ' whowk,' ' wfiowk.' When the young 

 are approached or handled the notes are even more angry, and 

 sound almost like ' quack.' Of course less excitement is shown when 

 they have eggs." 



The tawny-owl affords some striking contrasts with the species 

 already described. Like the longeared-owl it is a wood-haunting 

 species, that is to say, it resorts thither to breed, and seeks seclusion 

 therein by day throughout the year. But at nightfall it emerges to 

 hunt, preying upon mice, voles, rats, shrews, moles, and beetles, while 

 occasionally this diet is varied by fish caught as they swim near the 

 surface, or from the bed of shallow brooks. The barn-owl and the 

 snowy-owl, as we have remarked, will also occasionally turn fisherman. 

 But tNhing is possibly only resorted to when other food is, for a time, 

 scarce. This habit, however, loses something of its strangeness when 



