1 9 o 9- 1 9 1 o. ] The L ong-Eared Owl. 255 



reason we were treated to another harrowing demonstration 

 of Long-eared Owl agitation. We naturally concluded that 

 these youngsters were the product of a second laying of the 

 same bird, although the youngsters were certainly older than 

 we would have expected such products to be. The Thicket 

 was so small — -eight or nine acres — that it never occurred 

 to us that there might be two pairs of Long-eared Owls in 

 the wood. Judge then our astonishment when on the even- 

 ing of May 24, intent upon revisiting these youngsters, we 

 noticed that great quantities of Owl droppings bespattered the 

 foot of the fir upholding the old Magpie nest which had been 

 previously used. What on earth does this mean ? questioned 

 both our minds at once. Then looking up, we descried the 

 hunched back and protruding ears of an old Owl apparently 

 endeavouring with some lack of success to cover the nest. 

 The next minute we had put her off and reached the nest. 

 No emptiness this time — five hissing, bill-snapping youngsters, 

 ranging in size and age from a tiny ball of down with eyes 

 newly opened, to a frilled virago of six or seven days, who 

 stood upright on the rim of the nest, and arched his wings 

 as a kitten does her back, to give the fully terrifying effect 

 of his small proportions. We have sometimes wondered in 

 our artless inconsequent way what advantage it is to the 

 Long-eared Owl to hatch its young in the irregular manner 

 it does ; and we noted with some interest that the youngest 

 member of this family vied with his elder brothers and sisters 

 in the power and vehemence of his hissing and bill-snapping. 

 In any future struggle for existence which might take place 

 in that nest, we would have been prepared to lay odds on 

 the survival of the younf];est. The old Owl, meanwhile, had 

 been joined by a frantic mate, and the combined din of bark- 

 ing, moaning, and snapping which ensued seemed sufficiently 

 ample to rouse the whole wood, and not improbably the 

 keeper, whose cottage lay a field away from it. We hurried 

 away to the larch tree nest, found the Owls had evacuated 

 it, and, then still remembering the keeper, made a graceful 

 and unobtrusive exit from the wood. We knew now that 

 two pairs of Long-eared Owls had nested in the Thicket — 

 two pairs where in previous years we had never got a single 

 nest ! We might have flattered ourselves upon the growing 



