682 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



the autumn of the year countless numbers of storks (Ciconia maguan] and 

 of short-eared owls (Otits brachyotus) made their appearance. They had 

 also come to assist at the general feast. . . . 



"After cold weather set in the storks went away, probably on account 

 of the scarcity of water, for the owls remained. So numerous were they 

 during the winter that any evening after sunset I could count forty or fifty 

 individuals hovering over the trees about the house. Unfortunately they 

 did not confine their attentions to the mice, but became destructive to 

 the birds as well. I frequently watched them at dusk, beating about the 

 trees and bushes in a systematic manner, often a dozen or more of them 

 wheeling together about one tree, like so many moths about a candle, and 

 one occasionally dashing through the branches until a pigeon usually 

 the Zenaida maculata or other bird was scared from its perch. The 

 instant the bird left the tree they would all give chase, disappearing in the 

 darkness. I could not endure to see the havoc they were making amongst 

 the ovenbirds (Furnarius rufus a species for which I have a regard and 

 affection almost superstitious), so I began to shoot the marauders. Very 

 soon, however, I found it was impossible to protect my little favourites. 

 Night after night the owls mustered in their usual numbers, so rapidly 

 were the gaps I made in their ranks refilled. I grew sick of the cruel 

 war in which I had so hopelessly joined, and resolved, not without pain, 

 to let things take their course. A singular circumstance was that the owls 

 began to breed in the middle of winter. The field-labourers and boys 

 found many nests with eggs and young birds in the neighbourhood. I 

 saw one nest in July, our coldest month, with three half-grown young birds 

 in it. They were excessively fat, and, though it was noon-day, had their 

 crops full. There were three mice and two young cavies ( Ccmia australis] 

 lying untouched in the nest. 



"The short-eared owl is of a wandering disposition, and performs long 

 journeys at all seasons of the year in search of districts where food is 

 abundant ; and perhaps these winter-breeders came from a region where 

 scarcity of prey, or some such cause, had prevented them from nesting at 

 their usual time in summer." 



O. V. AplLn, Ibis, p. 193, 1894, says: "Met with at various dates con- 

 tinuously from the 26th November to the yth May, and it is doubtless a 

 resident, but I could never discover the nest. On one occasion (ist 

 April) one hovered over some thick paja, on being flushed, with an angry 



