244 The Long-Eared Owl. [Sess. 



he would share the living. That we had no excuse for this, 

 that neither our youth nor our evidence was excuse for this, 

 I am quite prepared now to admit. Even in these days we 

 had " authorities," and the authorities set no bounds to the 

 range of the Long-eared Owl on the Scottish mainland but 

 the bounds of coniferous wood. They said nothing about 

 low lands or high lands, about cultivated fields or open moor ; 

 coniferous wood was the only essential, and with wonderful 

 unanimity they all prescribed it. Why coniferous wood 

 should be an essential, in the manner of authorities they did 

 not stoop to say, but plainly no Long-eared Owl could be 

 happy without it. Certainly we ourselves had never dis- 

 covered a Long-eared Owl's nest in any other kind of wood — 

 so far we might be said to have found the bird following the 

 rules laid down for his guidance. The one or two cases of 

 Long-eared Owls roosting in deciduous wood which had come 

 before our notice in the Highlands might be assigned to pure 

 waywardness, and no malicious intention of slighting the 

 authorities. But if coniferous wood was the only essential, 

 why did the bird steer so religiously clear of the coniferous 

 wood scattered up and down the plains of the Lothians ? We 

 had hunted some of it — plantations which conformed in every 

 respect to the type of wood which the Long-eared Owl in- 

 habited in the uplands — again and again, and failed to find 

 any sign of its presence. Was something else — the wide 

 hunting spaces, for instance, the food-supplies of the moor — 

 essential in the Long-eared Owl's scheme of things ? or, faith- 

 ful adherent to bird -book law, was he in these woods all the 

 time and we merely incapable of finding him ? We had 

 never rated our bird-hunting ability very highly, and our up- 

 land experience had taught us something of Long-eared Owl 

 elusiveness ; but after a long day's hunting in lowland woods, 

 when we had peered and peered into the gloom of fir crowns 

 for hours, hammered and stoned and climbed trees uncount- 

 able, and failed to rouse one, we were mightily inclined to 

 think that, whatever the reason, and with all due defer- 

 ence to the authorities, the bird was not there. That the 

 Long-eared Owl had reasons for his absence we did not 

 doubt — these were the days of our innocence ; that the 

 reasons would serve to vindicate his position before the 



