88 A Pair of Long- Eared Owls. [Sess. 



young Long-ear as precisely a manageable infant — of children 

 was better understood. 



We may take May 15, by which date the young were 

 about twenty days old and the female had ceased to brood, 

 as illustrative of their methods in 1911. We arrived in the 

 wood about half an hour after sunset, and found the mother 

 bird perched and wide awake by the side of the nest. A 

 few minutes later she took wing and settled on a tree at 

 some distance. Shortly afterwards the hunger-call sounded 

 from the nest, and almost simultaneously the male came in 

 from the east and perched above our heads. As he took 

 wing again we realised he was carrying a mouse in his bill. 

 He flew straight to the tree where the mother bird was 

 perched, and the mouse passed from his bill to hers. The 

 mother, mouse in bill, flew forward, and after a moment's 

 hesitation took the prey to one of the young in the nest. 

 Then she began to fly from tree to tree very excitedly, utter- 

 ing deep angry barks, which might be written wow-wow and 

 sometimes ivoof-woof. Then she settled for a time and the 

 bark changed to oo-wack. She was evidently uneasy at our 

 presence, so we presently departed from the wood. 



On the following day (May 16) we noticed two young 

 birds looking out of the nest, while a third was sitting on 

 a branch a few feet from it, and a fourth was in an elder 

 bush a few yards from the nesting tree. In the evening we 

 arrived in the wood about sunset, at eight o'clock, and almost 

 immediately heard the weak hunger- call of the young, and 

 we guessed we had just missed a visit of the male. Again 

 the mother bird appeared very agitated, uttering the long- 

 drawn melancholy wow at intervals, and flitting from perch 

 to perch very restlessly. At 8.25 the male came in and 

 carried a mouse to where the female was perched, and then 

 instantly departed. The mother bird was not seen to leave 

 her perch, and probably devoured the prey herself. At 8.35 

 the male appeared again, and as before transferred his prey 

 to the female. This time she flew to the nest, and one of 

 the youngsters took the mouse from her bill. At 8.40 the 

 male returned a third time with a mouse in his bill, and as 

 he handed it over to the mother bird we heard the respective 

 oo and whee of the two sexes, reminiscent of the pre-nesting 



