OWLS. 293 



creature, with its bright eyes of yellowish red, and small 

 face animated by fear. The cry of this owl is neither so 

 loud nor harsh as that of the white. 



Last summer, I noticed a pair of young long-eared owls 

 at a bird-fancier's in Edinburgh. Thinking that they 

 would be hospitably received and well treated by the 

 possessors of the tool-house, I bought and ceremoniously 

 introduced them to each other. Next morning I perceived 

 the long-ears cowering at the farthest end of the house, and 

 directing timid glances to their host and hostess. Still fancy- 

 ing they would become better friends, I paid no attention, 

 although I saw some brown feathers ominously scattered 

 about. Two nights after, the white ones pecked them both 

 to death ! Such barbarity would have been quite in keep- 

 ing with the unkindly disposition of the hawk ; but one was 

 quite unprepared for it in the sedate and sagacious owl. 



From the small hawk head of the short-eared owl, it 

 most likely hunts on the wing, though I have never seen 

 it search for prey. I have several times started it in the 

 daytime, during autumn and winter, from tangled heathery 

 dells where there are fir or yew trees. Pennant says they 

 arrive in this country in October. My brother-in-law shot 

 one on the Arroquhar Moors shortly after the twelfth of 

 August. It rose out of the heather, and, I believe, was 

 pointed by one of his dogs. I had this bird stuifed. I 

 once pursued another from tree to tree, on Inch Conna- 

 chan, about the beginning of September. It appeared 

 more timid than any of the other owls, and would not let me 

 come within a hundred yards. Mice seemed to have been 



