The Owl Family. 47 



birds seem to lay three or four eggs, and the fully- 

 developed birds six, in June. The eggs are white, 

 round, a little coarse in the grain, and very large 

 for the size of the bird. 



"I feed my Scops on raw meat or sheep's heart cut 

 small, sometimes with a little cooked meat added. 

 This I place in a small flower-pot saucer on a shelf 

 where it may be easily found. Mealworms and 

 cockroaches are given from time to time. They also 

 feed occasionally from the other birds' saucers. They 

 cannot tear up large pieces of meat sufficiently to 

 sustain life, and are often slow, especially when 

 young and in a large aviary, to find their feeding- 

 saucers'. These two points must be borne in mind, 

 or your Scops will fill their stomachs with rubbish 

 and die of atrophy. I leave these birds out summer 

 and winter, except in very severe weather, when I 

 take them in as a precautionary measure; but then 

 they have plenty of room to fly about in, and shelters 

 from rain and every wind. They drink regularly, and 

 wash in the ordinary washing-pans. 



"The Scops-eared Owl is very pleasingly marked 

 with various shades of brown and reddish-brown, 'but 

 varies according to the age : some specimens are 

 much redder than others, and some grey. My birds, 

 measured while sitting on a perch, seem to be nearly 

 yin. long; the breadth is considerable. When young, 

 and afterwards in a less degree, the lower part of 

 the iris is orange, the upper yellow. The horns are 

 conspicuous only when the bird is alarmed. It is 

 exceedingly difficult to distinguish the sexes; usually, 

 but not always, the male is the smaller, wilder, and 



