204 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The mother (now more than nine years old) and daughter 

 continue to the present moment in apparently the best possible 

 health, but I have been unlucky enough to lose the male, from 

 blood poisoning— the effect, I believe, of the extreme cold of the 

 early part of last year acting upon an abscess at the root of one 

 of the lower premolars, and causing the mischief to spread to a 

 fatal extent. My hopes of again breeding Otters are therefore 

 for the present at an end. 



ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NATAL. 

 Br Majoiis E. A. Butf.kr and H. W. Feilden, and Capt. S. G. Reid 



(Continued from p. 171.) 



Pandion haliaetus (Linn.), Osprey. — One seen at the mouth of 

 the Umgeni River, near Durban, on the 24th and 26th December, 

 by Reid. On the 26th this solitary individual flew quietly up to 

 within a few yards of him and picked up a wounded Kingfisher, 

 Ceryle rudis, which he had just shot, from the water, flying off to 

 a neighbouring post to make a meal of it. 



Bubo capensis (Daud,), Cape Eagle Owl. — A female shot near 

 Newcastle by Feilden on June 5th. 



Bubo maculosus (Vieil.), Spotted Eagle Owl. — Common every- 

 where, frequenting rocky krantzes near streams. Butler took 

 eggs from a ledge among rocks near Newcastle on the 30th June, 

 and contributes the following note : — " Shot a hen bird off the 

 nest on the 1st June ; the three eggs, which were incubated, were 

 in a sandy depression of the ground on a ledge of rock, with a bush 

 growing out of the rock in front that concealed the eggs from view. 

 The rocks were on the top of a low hillside, and almost perpen- 

 dicular for about fifteen or twenty feet at the spot where the nest 

 was found, with a slope of grass for about a hundred yards below. 

 The following day on revisiting the place I found another pair 

 there, but I do not think they bred." A female obtained at the 

 Horn River on the 22nd July, had eggs considerablj' enlarged in 

 the ovary ; another female shot near Richmond Road Camp on 

 December 5th showed no signs of breeding. Iris brilliant pale 

 yellow (B). 



Scops capensis (Smith), Cape Scops Owl. — Butler obtained a 

 single example of this rare little Owl in the Drakensberg kloofs 



