90 STRIGID^E. 



very rarely about ClonmeL* Major Walker of Belmont, near 

 Wexford, mentions their presence in winter in numbers on the 

 mountain of Forth, whence they leave the country about April. 

 This gentleman remarks : — " I consider the short-eared owl and 

 the yellow owl [S. flammeaf] the most sharp-sighted and vigilant 

 birds I meet, and nearly impossible to get a shot at after being 

 once disturbed, perching as they do on some elevation, or in the 

 centre of a field, so as to command a good view around. I men- 

 tion this, as it is so different from the habits of the very large 

 owls I have met with in the forests of North America, which 

 would let our troops ride within a few yards of their perch, and 

 unless struck at, never flew away." Another correspondent, 

 writing from the same county, mentions Ins coming suddenly on 

 three of these birds, resting together on the ground in the middle 

 of a large bog, waiting as he supposed, " for an opportunity of 

 devouring snipe." Specimens are occasionally obtained in the 

 county of Waterford.f 



In the Fauna of Cork, the species is noted as not rare ; and from 

 what Dr. Harvey of Cork writes to me respecting its occurrence 

 in that neighbourhood, it would seem to be about equally common 

 as around Belfast. Mr. Neligan has remarked, that it arrives in 

 Kerry with the woodcock, and departs thence at the same period ; 

 also, that the haunts of the two species in the mountains are simi- 

 lar. In the month of September or October, — about the time of 

 arrival, — a friend of his once saw thirteen or fourteen in company; 

 and from sportsmen shooting near Tralee, he was occasionally 

 supplied with two or three of these birds in the course of a week. 

 Mr. M'Calla, writhfg from Eoundstone, Connemara, in October, 

 1840, stated that he had seen but one owl of any kind in that 

 district, and from the distance at which it was, the species could 

 not be ascertained. To the short-eared owl only would that 

 locality seem to be suited, and to it, particularly well. 



In the stomach of one specimen examined by me, were the legs of 

 a dunlin (Tringa variabilis), and in another, the remains of mice. J 



* Davis. f Bnrkitt. 



\ The following quaint extract from Kutty's Natural History of the county of 



