130 STRIGID A. 
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 12th 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 in their old haunts, 
to which they appear to return very regularly; and 
the female, with a young bird, was procured. The young 
could only fly for sixty or seventy yards.” 
Mr. Selby, from finding old birds during summer and on 
the 12th of August, at which time they were moulting, be- 
’ lieves that a few pairs breed on the higher moors of Nor- 
thumberland, and probably also some on those of West- 
moreland and Cumberland. Mr. Hoy, in the Magazine of 
Natural History, says, “‘I am acquainted with two locali- 
ties in the south-western part of Norfolk, where pairs of 
this bird breed; and I have known several instances of 
their eggs and young bemg found. One situation is on a 
dry heathy soil, the nest placed on the ground amongst 
high heath; the other in low fenny ground, among sedge 
and rushes: a friend of mine procured some eggs from the 
latter situation during the last summer (1832). The 
Short-eared Owl is pretty common in many parts of 
Norfolk durmg the autumn and winter, the great majority 
of them retiring northwards in the spring, only leaving a 
few scattered pairs to breed in this district.” 
The eggs of this bird, seldom exceeding three in number, 
are smooth and white, one inch eight lines in length, by 
one inch three lines and a half in breadth. 
Small quadrupeds and small birds form the principal food 
