56 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
interesting fact shown by the lighthouse returns, and one of which I was 
hitherto not aware, is that Swallows migrate both by day and by night. 
On the night of October 7th, from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., 8.S.E., rain, Land- 
rails, Water-rails, Woodcocks, Ring Ouzels, Common Thrushes, and 
Swallows (an odd mixture), were seen around the lantern of the Casquets, 
off Alderney; of these one Land-rail, one Water-rail, four Ring Ouzels, 
and one hundred Swallows struck the glass. So far as the returns have 
come in, I have tabulated only one other instance of Swallows seen during 
night—at the Hasborough lighthouse, Sept. 1st, 2 a.m., fog, “flock of 
Swallows”; several caught as they beat against the lantern. It is worthy 
of note that all birds passing the Casquet Lights from August 16th to 
December 8th,—a fact already alluded to by Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown,—as 
a rule, were passing N.W. from the French to the English coast, from 
Cape de la Hague to the Start Point—a course which seems quite to upset 
our preconceived ideas of the proper line to be followed by our autumn 
migrants, and one which I hope to be able to explain at length in our 
Report on Migration for 1880.—Joun Corpgavux (Great Cotes, Uleeby). 
Tue Hoorimne or tHe Lonc-EarED Owx.—I have just received two 
letters from my friends Mr. R. Warren and Mr. W. K. Dover, which, taken 
together, will afford, I believe, a satisfactory explanation of Mr. St. John’s 
statement. These remarks are so thoroughly to the point that I will leave 
them to speak for themselves, only premising that it is very remarkable how 
little is said by our best authorities about the cry of the Long-eared Owl, 
and it will be seen that St. John and Mr. Dover, both being quite familiar 
with the hoot of the Tawny Owl, still deliberately describe the ery of the 
Long-eared Owl, also, as “ hooting,” while Mr. Warren prefers to call it “a 
moan.” Mr. Warren writes :—‘‘ With regard to the possibility of the Long- 
eared and White Owls hooting, the answer will depend upon what each 
observer considers to be hooting; and upon that there may be as many 
opinions as hearers. Now, I have not the slightest doubt that St. John, on 
numberless occasions, heard the Long-eared Owls calling, and may have 
considered their long-drawn moaning cry to be hooting, but I prefer to call 
it ‘moaning’; and this cry is very different indeed from what I have heard 
of the quickly-repeated hoot of the Tawny Owl. With regard to Sir W. 
Jardine’s oft-quoted statement, given as a foot-note in his edition of White’s 
‘ Selborne,’ that the White Owl hoots, I am certain that he was mistaken. 
He may have shot a White Owl at the time of hearing the sound of hooting 
proceeding from the place where the bird was, but nevertheless the sound 
must have come from some Tawny Owl, sitting or flying close by, 
unperceived by Sir William. Since I was a boy I have noticed the White 
Owls yearly, and never heard the slightest approach to a call resembling a 
hoot; nothing but the screech of the adult or the snore of the young birds. 
