LONG-EARED OWL. 573 
ther it be high or low, in the fissure of a rock or on the ground. Some- 
times however it makes a nest itself, and this I found to be the case 
in one instance near the Juniatta River in Pennsylvania, where it was 
composed of green twigs with the leaflets adhering, and lined with 
fresh grass and sheep wool, but without feathers. The eggs are usual- 
ly four, nearly equally rounded at both ends, thin-shelled, smooth, when 
newly deposited pure white, with a slight blush, which is no longer 
observable when they have been for some time sitten upon, their ave- 
rage length an inch and a half, their greatest breadth an inch and 
three-sixteenths. I found eggs of this bird on the 15th of April, and 
again on the 25th of June, which induces me to believe that it rears 
two broods in the season in the State of Pennsylvania, as it probably 
does also to the westward. Whitson relates the following instance of 
its indifference as to the place selected for its eggs. ‘ About six or 
seven miles below Philadelphia, and not far from the Delaware, is a 
low swamp, thickly covered with trees, and inundated during great 
part of the year. This place is the resort of great numbers of the 
Qua-bird or Night Raven (Ardea Nycticorar), where they build in 
large companies. On the 25th of April, while wading among the dark 
recesses of this place, observing the habits of these birds, I discovered 
a Long-eared Owl, which had taken possession of one of their nests, 
and was sitting x on mounting to the nest, I found it contained four 
eggs, and breaking one of these, the young appeared almost ready to 
leave the shell. There were numbers of the Qua-birds’ nests on the 
adjoining trees all around, and one of them actually on the same tree.” 
When encamped in the woods, I have frequently heard the notes 
of this bird at night. Its ery is prolonged and plaintive, though con- 
sisting of not more than two or three notes repeated at intervals. 
Dr Ricuarpson states that it has been found “ as far north as Lat. 
60°, and probably exists as high as the forests extend. It is plentiful in 
the woods skirting the p!ains of the Saskatchewan, frequents the coast of 
“Hudson’s Bay only in the summer, and retires into the interior in the 
winter. It resides all the year in the United States, and perhaps is 
not a rare bird in any part of North America; but as it comes seldom 
abroad in the day, fewer specimens are obtained of it than of the other 
Owls. It preys chiefly on quadrupeds of the genus Arvicola, and in 
summer destroys many beetles. It lays three or four roundish white 
eggs, sometimes on the ground, at other times in the deserted nests of 
