THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 193 



example many years ago from Reymers which he had shot a long 

 time before. Since that time, no bird of this species has been seen 

 on the island. 



This small Owl is a resident breeding bird in the temperate 

 parts and the extreme south of Europe, in which latter region it 

 is particularly abundant ; it appears only once to have reached the 

 south of Sweden, but, according to Dresser, nests fairly abundantly 

 in Jutland. Moreover, from the fact that the bird has been seen 

 in England only a few times, one might conclude that it was afraid 

 of crossing the sea. Its autumn migration, too, like that of others 

 of its congeners, must take place in a southerly direction, as, if 

 it deviated in any way to the west, it could not fail frequently to 

 reach Heligoland from Jutland. 



31. Tengmalm's Owl [TENGMALMS KAUZ]. 

 STRIX TENGMALMI, Gmelin. 1 



Heligolandish : Kauken-iihl = Scops Oul. 



Strix Tengmalmi. Naumann, i. 500. 



Tengmalm's Owl. Dresser, v. 319. 



Chouette Tengmalm. Temminck, Mamiel, i. 94, iii. 49. 



During all the time I have been collecting, this small and 

 pretty Owl with its soft, silky plumage has been seen here at least 

 thirty times, and has been shot also in most of these instances. It 

 has undoubtedly occurred, however, here on many other occasions, 

 but owing to its shy and retired nature, has failed to come under 

 observation. In most cases, the birds seen in October were solitary 

 specimens, though there are repeated instances of two, three, or 

 even five birds having occurred in one day. Thus, on the 15th of 

 October 1859, two of these birds were shot, and several others 

 observed ; in fact, towards the evening of the same day, they became 

 so numerous that the elder Aeuckens put up his snipe-net in the 

 hope of catching Owls in it. He was, however, disappointed ; for 

 these birds fly very cautiously, and can see very keenly in the dark, 

 so that they probably always managed to discover the net in good 

 time, and thus avoided being captured. 



An extraordinarily strong migration of eastern species, especially 

 of Anihus richardi, took place on the above-named day : it had 

 begun, in fact, in the middle of September hundreds of Common 

 Jays, too, were migrating daily, a phenomenon which, as I have had 

 occasion to mention before, only takes place in autumn, and under 

 such conditions of weather as influence a strong inrush from the 



1 Nyctcda tengmalmi (Gmel.). 

 N 



