58 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



smaller wading birds, or had alighted during the night after a 

 migratory journey, I am unable to say. Any specimens that I 

 procured were in excellent plumage. 



My friend Mr Sinclair has also seen this species in the middle 

 of summer, hawking in daylight alongside a moor at Inverkip 

 Glen, Renfrewshire; and thirty years ago it was a permanent resi- 

 dent as far south as Portpatrick, in Wigtownshire, where it nested 

 regularly. 



In the Outer Hebrides the Short eared Owl is very common, 

 breeding in the moors of nearly all the islands. I am most fami- 

 liar with it, however, as a bird of North Uist and Benbecula, 

 where it has been long well known. Among the inner islands it 

 is resident all the year in Skye, Mull, and Islay. 



Mr Angus has sent me word that he has taken the nest, with 

 three eggs, this year (1868) in Aberdeenshire, on the 8th of April. 

 This is the earliest date I have heard of. Sir John Richardson 

 found the eggs ready for being laid on 20th May; Mr Hepburn 

 has seen newly-fledged young ones in East Lothian in the end of 

 July; and Sir William Jardine, who has repeatedly taken the nest 

 in Dumfriesshire, remarks that the young are barely able to fly 

 by the 1 2th of August. 



THE WHITE OR BARN OWL. 



STRIX FLAM ME A. 

 Cailleach oidhche gheal. 



JUDGING from the numbers of this beautiful Owl which are sent 

 to the shops of the Glasgow bird-stuffers, it would appear to be one 

 of the commonest " feathered mousers " in the neighbourhood of 

 the city. There is scarcely, indeed, a ruined building of any con- 

 sequence within a radius of thirty miles of Glasgow, but what is 

 frequented by one or two pairs. Yet it is by no means widely 

 distributed as a Scottish species some of the more northern 

 counties being totally destitute of the associations which its pre- 

 sence has given rise to. In the western islands, I have been able 

 to trace it only in Mull and Islay; in the former locality it is 

 rather rare, but in the latter it is well known in two districts at 

 least the woods at Islay House and Port-Askaig as I have been 

 informed by Mr Elwes. "In lona," says Mr Graham, "where 



