LAKE, SWAMP, AND REED BED. Ill 



Owl. It is a winter migrant to the county, but 

 irregular in appearance, sometimes being common 

 and widely dispersed, at others scarce and local. 

 We have sometimes flushed several of these Owls 

 from one spot amongst coarse grass and rushes in 

 the swarnps close by the sea. On the east coast of 

 England, where this bird is known locally as the 

 " Woodcock Owl," we have flushed as many as a 

 score one after the other in half as many yards. 

 This Owl arrives in Devonshire during the last 

 half of October, and leaves us again in March. 

 Another marsh bird of Devon is the Water Rail. 

 Perhaps no other bird in the county is more over- 

 looked or considered rarer than it really is. Few 

 birds are so skulking in their habits. It rarely 

 shows itself, except in the gloom of evening or when 

 accidentally flushed. It is a denizen of many a 

 marshy meadow and osier bed, though quite 

 unsuspected by the ordinary observer. In 

 winter, when the cover in many of these places 

 becomes much less dense or even dies down 

 altogether, we have known this Rail resort to 

 hedgerows and the ditches below them. It is also 

 frequently to be met with in the swampy corners 

 of worked-out brick-fields and clay pits. We often 



