Eared Owl. RAPTORES. OTUS. 89 



autumn, I have often met with them in turnip fields, but 

 have never seen them in plantations ; nor do they ever at- 

 tempt to perch upon a tree. Five or six of these birds are 

 frequently found roosting together ; from which circumstance 

 it is probable that they migrate in families. Montagu 

 thinks that this may arise from the abundance of food they 

 meet with in the places where they are thus collected, but the 

 truth of this supposition I am inclined to doubt, from the 

 fact of their being seldom met with during two days together 

 in the same place. 



They rarely appear in England previous to the beginning 

 of October, though I have killed two or three individuals 

 when grouse-shooting on the upland moors in August, at 

 which season they were in the moult * 



* Sir William Jardine (in a note on this species in his edition of 

 Wilson's American Ornithology) thhiks that it may lank as a summer vi. 

 sitant in the north of England and Scotland ; and would even extend the 

 southern limit of its incubation to the extensive moorland ranges of Cum- 

 berland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland. He appears to entertain 

 no doubt but that the birds killed in such situations, during the grouse sea- 

 sons, bred there ; and goes on to state what (from its interesting nature) I 

 make no apology for transcribing, " On the extensive moors at the head 

 of Dryfe (a small rivulet in Dumfriesshire), I have, for many years past, 

 met with one or two pairs of these birds, and the accidental discovery of 

 their young first turned my attention to the range of their breeding ; for, 

 previous to this, I also held the opinion that they had commenced their 

 migration southward. The young was discovered by one of my dogs point- 

 ing it ; and on the following year, by searching at the proper season, two 

 nests were found with five eggs. They were formed upon the ground among 

 the heath, the bottom of the nest scraped until the fresh earth appeared, 

 on which the eggs were placed, without any lining or other accessory co- 

 vering. When approaching the nest or young, the old birds fly and hover 

 round, uttering a shrill cry, and snapping with their bills. They will then 

 alight at a short distance, survey the aggressor, and again resume their 

 flight and cries. The young are barely able to fly by the 1 2th of August, 

 and appear to leave the nest some time before they are able to rise from 

 the ground. I have taken them, on that great day to sportsmen, squatted 

 on the heath like young black game, at no great distance from each other, 

 and always attended by the parent birds. Last year (1831) I found them 



