THE OWLS 239 



In this they were disappointed. They then determined 

 to take the nest, and one of the party was ordered to try 

 to get up to it. " Ferencz, who was a particularly clever 

 climber, swung himself from the boat up the stem of the 

 tree with the assistance of the climbing-irons. The upper 

 part of the willow was so broad that he could move quite 

 easily along its slanting surface, and on reaching the hole 

 which served as the entrance to the nest he felt cautiously 

 inside. 



"He first carefully pulled out the newly-killed bodies 

 of four moor-hens, which the Owl had probably brought 

 this very day as food for the young. The bodies were quite 

 intact, but curiously enough all the heads were gone. . . . 

 We then called out to him to throw down some of the 

 materials of the nest into a sack, and out came a mass 

 consisting of feathers, twigs, bones of dead creatures, and 

 quantities of maggots and vermin. Finally, he lowered 

 into my boat one by one the four young birds, which were 

 rather small and covered with light grey down." 



The handling of an Owl's nest is not a pleasant task, 

 especially an old nest, with its great accumulation of bones 

 and fragments, the refuse of many meals. 



Sometimes the " nest " hardly deserves the name, being 

 merely a hollow in the ground with a little rampart of 

 bones and pickings and cast-up pellets. The eggs are 

 usually two or three in number. 



And the builders of the nest, what are they like, in size 

 and colour? Well, the general hue of an Eagle Owl's 

 plumage is brown, but the shade seems to vary in light- 

 ness in different countries. The black markings are very 

 handsome. The ear-tufts measure rather over three inches. 

 The length of the bird is about twenty-six inches. 



He is a splendid fellow, and his mate is even bolder and 



