1909-1910-] The Long-Eared Owl. 257 



presages disaster, "all went well." The bird brooded the 

 nest in the most orthodox manner. On April 9 (by which 

 date she had been sitting on the first eggs for at least eighteen 

 days) we could not see her from the ground, so the tree was 

 climbed to ascertain the true state of affairs. You will think 

 the climb was hardly necessary ; you can easily guess what 

 we found. The nest was empty, — empty just as all the 

 other nests had been at one stage or other of their careers 

 under Long-eared Owl auspices, and just as inexplicably. In 

 this case, however, we further complicated the riddle by 

 flushing a Long-eared Owl from the Crow's nest of 1906, 

 which was only a few yards away. Why she was sitting 

 there we do not know to this day, — she never sat in it again 

 to our knowledge, and we never mustered sufficient energy to 

 reach it : we were growing a little weary of examining empty 

 Crow and Magpie nests. But we may venture the surmise 

 — the scantier the evidence the easier the surmise — that 

 having been disturbed in some mysterious way from the first 

 nest, this bird was busy sampling new quarters in the recog- 

 nised Long-eared Owl fashion for her second clutch. The 

 new quarters, however well adapted for her purpose and how- 

 ever much she liked them, became no longer either well 

 adapted or likeable when we tapped the tree. That she did 

 lay a second clutch somewhere is certain, because on the 

 evening of July 4 we heard the piercing hunger-call of young 

 Long- eared Owls coming from different parts of the wood, and 

 nightly thereafter from sunset to dawn these youngsters rent 

 the deep stillness of the woodland darkness. Where they 

 had been reared we failed to discover. Let it suffice that they 

 had been reared. 



I come now to C. wood. After March 15, when we dis- 

 turbed a Long-eared Owl from the nest in which young had 

 been found in 1907, we left C. wood severely alone for some 

 days. We were anxious to give this bird no excuse for de- 

 sertion ; we curbed ambition, and sought an outlet for our Owl- 

 hunting energies in new and, as it proved, quite profitless fields. 

 As matters turned out, we had good reason to be pleased with 

 this touching exhibition of self-restraint. On March 25 the 

 same nest contained four eggs. On April 5 the bird was 

 still sittin^:^ on the same nest, but the clutch had increased to 



