OWL SECRETS 303 



and we will now consider the two medium-sized fellows, but 

 only briefly, as I have not been able, as yet, to photograph 

 them in the East. They are the Long-eared and Short-eared 

 Owls. The latter is a bird of the open marshes, particularly 

 on the seacoast, and is not at all plenty, save as a migrant. 

 I have never seen its nest in New England, though it is 

 known to breed at places where I have been, such as Martha's 

 Vineyard and Chatham. But in autumn I have often flushed 

 it singly from marshes or bushy tracts along the coast, and 

 sometimes inland. 



The Long-eared Owl is much more common and breeds 

 regularly in pineries and cedar swamps, but it is so retiring 

 that it is largely overlooked. Few naturalists have ever heard 

 its hooting. Early one morning, years ago, I heard a long- 

 drawn, wailing cry, twice or thrice repeated, that seemed to 

 proceed from a cedar swamp, near the Weld farm, West 

 Roxbury, Massachusetts. Investigation revealed a Long-eared 

 Owl roosting in the dense cedars, the probable author of the 

 sounds. In such situations I have often found them, and 

 there they sometimes breed, as, indeed, they did in this par- 

 ticular swamp, with the Night Herons, though they often, 

 perhaps usually in New England, choose tall pines, content- 

 ing themselves with an old nest. 



No owl's nest, save that of the Screech Owl, perhaps, is 

 harder to find. The reason is that the bird usually can neither 

 be seen from the ground nor made to fly. As there are 

 hundreds of old nests in the evergreen groves and swamps, 

 it is impossible for the searcher to climb them all, and thus 

 he may pass under the brooding owl without knowing it. A 

 friend of mine, traversing a grove through which I had often 

 gone, happened to notice on one of the old squirrels' nests 

 a clinging fragment of gray down. He could start nothing, 

 but finally climbed the tree, and when close up to the nest, 



