OCCASIONAL NOTES. DAN 
particular I recollect seeing five or six, and these flew in a moth-like 
fashion out upon the heath and back again to the fir-trees, keeping ina 
body, and often uttering a short sharp chirp or whistle, something after the 
fashion of the Nightjar. I laid quietly behind a bank and watched their 
movements, and as their excursions were made in a westerly direction— 
between myself and the fast-retirmg sun—I could see them very plainly 
skimming about, sometimes just over the heather, then settling down, or 
chasing each other as if in play, after which they would return to the wood 
and settle on some low fir branch near to me, so that I could almost reach 
them with my hand. It seemed to me that they were birds belonging to 
the same nest, as they appeared uncommonly tame, but I had not heard 
that any Owl had nested in the wood where these frequented. Strange to 
say I have seen the Shorteared Owl but twice in this neighbourhood, while 
the longeared species is much oftener observed. It may often be seen 
during the winter months gibbeted in the “ gamekeepers’ museum,” for it 
must be understood that here, as in most other places, all Owls are classed 
as “vermin,” and pay the penalty accordingly.—G. B. Corsi. 
Rooxs atrackine Acorns.—Whilst spending a few weeks in West 
Sussex during the past autumn, I was much amused in watching the way 
in which the Rooks carried off the acorns from an oak in front of our 
windows. Not content with picking up those which had fallen upon the 
grass below, they alighted upon the extremity of the branches, and plucking 
off the growing ones, carried them away to a little distance, and attacked 
them at leisure. I remarked that they did not swallow them whole, as 
Wood Pigeons do, but pecked them to pieces on the ground. Whether 
they swallowed the fragments, or only broke them to get at a grub within, 
I could not ascertain without shooting some of them,-which I was loth to 
do; but I am inclined to think that a worm was the attraction, for after the 
birds had decamped I picked up handfuls of damaged and broken acorns, 
many of them only slightly chipped, which I should hardly have found if 
the birds had been feeding on them. ‘This habit does not seem to have 
been noticed by the authorities on British birds, and I have looked in vain 
for any mention of it in the pages of Bewick, Montagu, Selby, Macgillivray, 
and Yarrell. It is true that Macgillivray includes acorns amongst the 
food of the Rook, but mentions them in such a way as rather to suggest 
that it is the fallen acorns which are picked up. In Jesse’s ‘ Gleanings,’ 
however (Ist series, p. 61), I find the following statement :—*“ Rooks are 
known to bury acorns, and I believe walnuts also, as I have observed them 
taking ripe walnuts from a tree and returning to it before they could have 
had time to break them and eat the contents. Indeed, when we consider 
how hard the shell of a walnut is, it is not easy to guess how the Rook 
contrives to break it. May they not, by first burying them, soften the 
shell, and afterwards return to feed upon them?” It is a little curious that 
