194 BRITISH 5lRDS. 



varieties occur, somewhat smaller in size, and having more rounded wings, 

 the first primary being shorter than the seventh, and the second primary 

 much shorter than the fifth. (In the European and North-west Himalayan 

 birds the first primary is considerably longer than the seventh^ and the 

 second primary much longer than the fifth.) Similar small varieties 

 with rounded wings also occur in China, Japan, and the valley of the 

 Amoor. 



The Scops Owl is a nocturnal bird, its note being more often heard 

 during the night than during the day. Its food is procured principally 

 during the evening; and in the daytime it is very seldom seen on the 

 wing. That it is not exclusively nocturnal in its habits is proved by the 

 observations of Dresser, who states that he not unfrequently saw it in 

 Spain flying, about during the brightest portion of a hot summer's day. 

 Heuglin, in describing its habits on the Nile, where it is only a winter 

 visitant, also says that it is frequently seen during the daytime, frequenting 

 not only copses, but occasionally isolated bushes where there is scarcely 

 any shade. During the day it is seldom seen far from the trees where it 

 roosts; but in the evening it frequents the open ground, feeding upon 

 grasshoppers, beetles, cockchafers, and large moths, and occasionally 

 catching a mouse or a shrew. Naumann says that it also picks up small 

 birds and frogs, and on clear nights hunts till dawn. The Scops Owl not 

 only frequents the country, but also comes into the gardens and avenues 

 of trees in many southern cities. Irby mentions that their monotonous 

 single note may be heard repeatedly by day as well as by night, even 

 in the trees which fringe the Delicias, the Rotten Row of Seville. 



In Greece and Asia Minor I found it a not uncommon bird, but one 

 which was very rarely seen. The Little Owl was often seen in the day- 

 time ; but the present species seemed more especially to be a nocturnal 

 bird. I never once met with it on the wing, but have often listened to 

 its monotonous note, as monotonous as a passing bell, and almost as 

 melancholy. To my ears this note is exactly represented by the sound of 

 the syllable ahp repeated in an unvarying and desponding tone every ten 

 or twenty seconds. This bird is generally, if sparingly, distributed all 

 over Greece, from the seashore almost, if not quite, up to the pine-regions 

 on the mountains. I have often listened to its note as I lay in my camp- 

 bed in a peasant's cottage at Agoriane, halfway up the Parnassus, when it 

 was almost too cold to sleep with comfort ; and I have heard it from the 

 hotel at Buyukdere, on the Bosphorus, when, with window wide open, the 

 heat made it still more difScult to pass the night in happy unconsciousness 

 even of ornithological sounds. 



In the extreme south of Europe a few Scops Owls are to be seen during 

 the winter ; but by far the greatest number are migrants, arriving early 

 in April and leaving again in October. Immediately after its arrival the 



