190 BRITISH BIRDS. 



crags and ledges of the character wliich is usually so attractive to birds of 

 prey. There was a little village at the foot, and an old man pointed out 

 the direction from which the hootings were to be heard every evening. 

 Whilst I was listening to the consultation, and taking a survey with my 

 glass, an Osprey flew along the edge of the cliff; and at a great height 

 above us, and mellowed in the distance, there came a full note from a Berg- 

 ufo, who no doubt had seen the stranger bird. This was very encouraging, 

 and it did not take long to arrange the order in which the various likely 

 rocks were to be visited . An active woodman accompanied me axe in hand. 

 When we were fairly in the cliffs we came to a point where some large bird 

 was in the habit of sitting to tear its prey, and feathers and white feet of 

 hares were lying about. A great Owl flew before us, showing a beautiful 

 expanse of back and wings ; and as we proceeded in the direction from 

 which it came, another large 0\^i rose from the face of the cliff, flew a 

 hundred paces forward, turned its wide face towards us, and came a short 

 distance back. I stopped to examine it with my glass to be quite certain 

 it was S. bubo. Satisfied on this point, we only had to walk a few paces 

 along a ledge before the family group was in sight — two blind little puffs 

 covered with down just tinged with yellow, and an egg with the prisoner 

 inside uttering his series of four or five chirps through the window he had 

 made in the shell, with a voice scarcely more feeble than that of his elder 

 brothers. There did not seem to be much difference in the ages of the 

 three ; they were lying upon a small quantity of compressed fur, princi- 

 pally of rats, the remains of the castings of the parent birds, their bed 

 nearly flat, for there was not more than two inches of soil. Uva-ursi 

 and several other plants grew near ; and a small Scotch fir tree had its 

 trunk curiously flattened to the perpendicular rock at the back ; the ledge 

 was not more than two feet wide, and terminated abruptly just beyond the 

 nest; the rock beneath was also perpendicular. We waited at the nest a 

 long time in the hope that they [the parent birds] would show themselves : 

 but it was not till we had left it that we saw them again sitting on the top- 

 most shoots of spruce firs with their ears finely relieved against the sky ; 

 and as we were nearly in the village again they hooted with a troubled 

 note." The Eagle Owl very often chooses a place for its abode similar to 

 that selected by the Golden Eagle, and often quite exposed and open to the 

 full glare of day. 



The eggs of the Eagle Owl are usually three in number, sometimes only 

 two ; but no authentic instance is on record where four or more eggs have 

 been found in one nest. It will thus be seen that the number of eggs laid 

 by the Snowy Owl is much larger ; yet the two birds occur in pretty much 

 the same numbers. It is therefore possible that the Snowy Owl lays more 

 eggs to support a greater mortality to which its more northern range exposes 

 it, where food is extremely precarious, and the climate so severe. The 



