250 The Long-Eared Owl. [Sess. 



would only use a nest in a coniferous tree. On that day we 

 disturbed a Long- eared Owl from an old Magpie nest in a 

 thorn tree on the edge of the southern belt of firs. There 

 were no eggs, but we knew from our experience in C. wood 

 that a Long-eared Owl will brood a nest for some days before 

 laying. Doubtless she would have laid in this nest if we had not 

 disturbed her. That she never did may be regarded as no more 

 than further evidence of Long-eared Owl susceptibility. It 

 did not affect what appeared to us to be quite plain, that a 

 Long-eared Owl had deliberately chosen a nest in a deciduous 

 tree in a wood where there were numerous suitable nests in firs 

 to provide other alternatives. And we rejoiced to find a bird 

 so defiantly contemptuous of the whole lock, stock, and barrel 

 of the corpus juris. At the same time that we flushed this 

 bird from the nest we disturbed another Owl — apparently her 

 mate — from a neighbouring fir, and the two birds flew off 

 together. We went straight from this nest to the Scots fir 

 corner, and found the Long-eared Owl there still, roosting in 

 his favourite tree. We were sure now that there were three 

 Long-eared Owls in the wood, — a little search ought to prove 

 that there were two pairs. With this to inspire us, we ran- 

 sacked the wood on April 4. We commenced by finding 

 the Magpie's nest in the thorn-tree deserted ; we indemnified 

 this loss almost immediately, however, by putting a Long-eared 

 Owl off another old nest in a Scots fir about thirty yards away. 

 This nest contained one egg, and was no doubt the new property 

 of the bird which had been found " warming " the thorn-tree 

 nest. We looked at that solitary egg long and anxiously — we 

 did not expect to see it again — and then worked through the 

 young mixed covert, which occupies the centre of the wood, 

 to the Scots fir corner. Here again we suffered disappoint- 

 ment, — the regular rooster was not in his accustomed perch. 

 We proceeded to examine the old nests in the vicinity. 

 When the Owls nested in 1904 there had been very few of 

 these in the Scots fir corner capable of accommodating a 

 Long-eared Owl's family, and the rickety structure used upon 

 that occasion no longer existed. Since that day, however, a 

 pair of Carrion-crows had taken up their residence in the 

 wood, and in the course of 1905 and 1906 made three very 

 valuable additions to the supply of desirable dwellings for 



