574 A FEW AUTUMN NOTES. 
I may here devote a little more of my attention to the 
Owls, and mention that on October 16th I found only a few 
Long-eared Owls (Otus sylvestris) in a large oak wood in the 
same neighbourhood ; but that on the 17th I saw in a small 
cover on the borders of a pond more than a hundred Long- 
eared, with just a few Short-eared Owls. I was shooting 
pheasants at the time, and from the reeds and scattered 
bushes, as well as from the dense clumps of spruces and 
Scotch firs, the Owls, frightened by the shots, rose in 
flocks and flew round in wide circles. The whole ground 
was covered with their droppings and castings, in which 
one could easily see traces of the mice that they had 
devoured. 
On the 20th the Owls were just as numerous in the same 
place, and remained so ; for the keeper of that preserve told 
me that they were there every day, sometimes more of them, 
sometimes fewer. 
On November 4th I met with a large flock of Long-eared 
Owls in a larger wood, but only among the thick spruces. 
During October and the beginning of November I also found 
the Short-eared Owl very common on the bare fields, 
ploughed land, the borders of meadows, and in ditches. On 
the 12th of the latter month I flushed many birds of both 
species in a thin but rather extensive wood of deciduous 
trees. On the 14th I found more than forty Short-eared 
Owls and a few Long-eared in the above-mentioned little 
cover near the pond, and also in a patch of acacia bushes 
further off among the fields. The following days snow 
fell heavily, and covered everything with a thick mantle; 
and when I again visited the same place on the 20th the 
keeper informed me that the Owls had vanished at the first 
heavy snowfall, and I found only one of the Short-eared 
species, which flew from a thick spruce in a languid sort of 
way. It is strange that in the woods and little copses on 
