130 STRIGID.E. 



a shrill cry, and snapping with their bills. They will then 

 alight at a short distance, survey the aggressor, and again 

 resume their flight and cries. The young are barely able 

 to fly by the 1 2th of August, and appear to leave the nest 

 some time before they are able to rise from the ground. I 

 have taken them, on that great day to sportsmen, squatted 

 on the heath like young black game, at no great distance 

 from each other, and always attended by the parent birds. 

 Last year (1831) I found them in their old haunts, 

 to which they appear to return very regularly ; and 

 the female, with a young bird, was procured. The young 

 could only fly for sixty or seventy yards." 



Mr. Selby, from finding old birds during summer and on 

 the 1 2th of August, at which time they were moulting, be- 

 lieves that a few pairs breed on the higher moors of Nor- 

 thumberland, and probably also some on those of West- 

 moreland and Cumberland. Mr. Hoy, in the Magazine of 

 Natural History, says, " I am acquainted with two locali- 

 ties in the south-western part of Norfolk, where pairs of 

 this bird breed ; and I have known several instances of 

 their eggs and young being found. One situation is on a 

 dry heathy soil, the nest placed on the ground amongst 

 high heath ; the other in low fenny ground, among sedge 

 and rushes : a friend of mine procured some eggs from the 

 latter situation during the last summer (1832). The 

 Short-eared Owl is pretty common in many parts of 

 Norfolk during the autumn and winter, the great majority 

 of them retiring northwards in the spring, only leaving a 

 few scattered pairs to breed in this district." 



The eggs of this bird, seldom exceeding three in number, 

 are smooth and white, one inch eight lines in length, by 

 one inch three lines and a half in breadth. 



Small quadrupeds and small birds form the principal food 



