106 Strigidce. 



Avebury, reports a nest with three young birds found by his son 

 on April 10th, in a plantation on Windmill Hill, very close to 

 the borders of my parish. Mr. Grant reports a nest taken at 

 Figheldean, May 2nd, 1862, and I understand that it breeds 

 annually near Marlborough. The Rev. A. P. Morres described it 

 as common near Salisbury, more especially at Longford Park, no 

 less than eleven having, on one occasion, been found congregated 

 in a copse of yew trees, on the property of the Earl of Radnor, 

 during some hard weather in winter. In like manner Mr. Powell, 

 of Hurdcott, informed me that on November 29th, 1879, while 

 shooting at Grovely, the sportsmen disturbed a flight of Long- 

 eared Owls estimated at no less than twenty birds which 

 seemed to fly out of every tree. The frost was very severe at the 

 time, the thermometer marking no less than 16 of cold. Lastly 

 I have a specimen in my collection, which I picked up dead 

 beneath a larch tree in my garden, which was in beautiful 

 plumage, and bore no external marks of injury, but was so 

 emaciated that it appeared to have been starved to death. I 

 have other instances of the occurrence of this owl at Erchfont, 

 Hilmarton, Erlestoke, Everley, S to well, Chitterne, Wilsford, and 

 other places. 



22. SHORT-EARED OWL (Otus brachyotos). 



So far as my experience goes, quite as numerous as the 

 ' Long-eared/ and well known to most sportsmen is this species, 

 which arrives here in October, and leaves us again in spring. 

 Unlike its congener, this owl never enters woods and planta- 

 tions, and is generally said never to perch on a tree; while 

 it is certain that it prefers the open common, the turnip 

 field, the marsh, and the moor, amongst the long coarse 

 grass of which it makes its nest. Mr. Harting, however, 

 doubts whether it always keeps to the ground, and thinks 

 it not improbable that it roosts in trees at night ; and I may 

 say, in corroboration of this view, that in Egypt I once 

 picked up beneath a palm tree, from which it had evidently 

 fallen, the dead body of a Short-eared Owl in perfect plumage, 



