574 A FEW AUTUMN NOTES. 



I may here devote a little more of my attention to the 

 Owls, and mention that on October 16th I found only a few 

 Long-eared Owls ( Otus sylvestris) in a large oak wood in the 

 same neighbourhood ; but that on the 17th I saw in a small 

 cover on the borders of a pond more than a hundred Long- 

 eared, with just a few Short-eared Owls. I was shooting 

 pheasants at the time, and from the reeds and scattered 

 bushes, as well as from the dense clumps of spruces and 

 Scotch firs, the Owls, frightened by the shots, rose in 

 flocks and flew round in wide circles. The whole ground 

 was covered with their droppings and castings, in which 

 one could easily see traces of the mice that they had 

 devoured. 



On the 20th the Owls were just as numerous in the same 

 place, and remained so ; for the keeper of that preserve told 

 me that they were there every day, sometimes more of them, 

 sometimes fewer. 



On November 4th I met with a large flock of Long-eared 

 Owls in a larger wood, but only among the thick spruces. 

 During October and the beginning of November I also found 

 the Short-eared Owl very common on the bare fields, 

 ploughed land, the borders of meadows, and in ditches. On 

 the 12th of the latter month I flushed many birds of both 

 species in a thin but rather extensive wood of deciduous 

 trees. On the 14th I found more than forty Short-eared 

 Owls and a few Long-eared in the above-mentioned little 

 cover near the pond, and also in a patch of acacia bushes 

 further off among the fields. The following days snow 

 fell heavily, and covered everything with a thick mantle; 

 and when I again visited the same place on the 20th the 

 keeper informed me that the Owls had vanished at the first 

 heavy snowfall, and I found only one of the Short-eared 

 species, which flew from a thick spruce in a languid sort of 

 way. It is strange that in the woods and little copses on 



