THE SHORT-EARED OWL 46 



land, and his mate deposits her eggs, not in the 

 snug hollow of a tree, or in a barn, or in the 

 deserted drey of a squirrel, but in the open, on the 

 bare ground, or sheltered, if sheltered at all, only 

 by dead bracken or a tuft of overhanging heather. 

 In a word, the short-eared owl is less of an owl 

 than other owls. She is less nocturnal in her 

 habits, and has been observed, not infrequently, as 

 we shall see, beating the ground for her favourite 

 food, the field vole, in the full glare of the 

 sun. 



Though she is called the " short-eared owl," her 

 horns are so much shorter than those of her nearest 

 relative, the long-eared owl, and she so seldom 

 elevates them, that they are apt to escape notice 

 altogether. In the shape of her head, she resembles 

 a hawk almost as much as an owl, and hence is often 

 called the hawk-owl. All other owls are strictly 

 local in their habits, clinging, with touching fidelity, 

 to the barn or belfry, to the immemorial oak or 

 beech, to the fir plantation in which they first saw, 

 or shrunk from, the light of day. They seldom 

 wander, in their longest flight, more than a mile 

 or two from it. The short-eared owl, on the con- 

 trary, is a vagrant by nature and by habit ; here 

 to-day and gone to-morrow. You never know 



