i9i3- J 9 I 4-] A Pair of Long-Eared Owls. 85 



her fine wits ; it may also have been due to the excited medley 

 of noises from the young, She flew off the nest without a 

 murmur, but when the climber reached the nest and the five 

 youngsters began to hiss and snap their bills and emit the 

 baby hunger-cry, she reappeared — a perfect virago of a bird. 

 Clapping her mandibles together, she dashed repeatedly past 

 the climber's head. Once or twice she perched restlessly and 

 uttered a hoarse whee ; then the male appeared, almost as 

 excited as his mate, and perched on a tree a few yards away. 

 Here he spread out his wings and ' shammed wounded ' in a 

 quaint fashion of his own. Although this ebullition of ex- 

 citement was more in keeping with the behaviour of other 

 Long-eared Owls when disturbed at the nest, it was hardly 

 so vehement as some displays we had witnessed in other 

 woods. 



In both 1910 and 1911 the mother bird brooded her 

 young, night and day, for some twenty days, but in other 

 respects there was great diversity between the methods of 

 rearing the young in the two seasons. During those twenty 

 days the male, of course, did all the foraging ; and I may cite 

 June 19 as typical procedure in 1910. We were in the 

 Corner at sunset, and for half an hour sat patiently waiting, 

 then one of the youngsters — a white fluffy thing — emerged 

 from under its mother's feathers and stood on the rim of the 

 nest. A few minutes later the male came in from the north 

 carrying a mouse in his claws. After circling round he flew 

 to the nest. Settling on the edge, he transferred the prey to 

 his bill and, a moment later, passed it over to the youngster 

 who had already come forward. The food delivered, the male 

 hastily left the nest, paused for a minute on a neighbouring- 

 tree and uttered what we were wont to call the ' hoarse ' 

 note, and then disappeared out of the wood. Throughout the 

 transaction the mother made no movement and no sound ; 

 there was rather an expressive coldness about her demeanour, 

 which may have accounted for the male's hurried departure. 

 When we left the wood at 9.30 he had not returned — that is 

 to say, one mouse had been brought into the nest in one 

 hour and a half. We were hardly surprised at the female's 

 frigidity. 



Yet during these twenty days in 1910 he rarely quickened 



