i9i3 _I 9 I 4-] A Pair of Long-Eared Owls. 83 



in other ways. He roosted in trees close to the nest. In 

 1910 he used a big elder bush almost under the nest. He 

 rose consistently earlier in the evening, as if he realised the 

 needs of his mate, but he rarely flew out of the wood without 

 exchanging a few words with her, and it was under these 

 circumstances, both in 1910 and 1911, that we several times 

 heard him use the whee note of the female. 



On May 8, 1910, he began calling the usual 00 note shortly 

 after sunset. Then he flew to a tree very near the nest. 

 Here he called very loudly and regularly the same note, once 

 uttering 00-00-00 in very rapid succession, while faint replies 

 of whee came from the bird on the nest. Then he suddenly 

 changed his perch to a tree close to where we stood and began 

 uttering the ivhee note, to which the female responded as 

 before. We were so near to the male upon this occasion that 

 there was no room for any doubt about the character of his 

 speech. On April 22, 1911, practically the same thing 

 occurred. He flew forward from his roost to a tree quite 

 near to where we stood and uttered the unmistakable cry of 

 the female. On this occasion, however, the female did not 

 respond with her whee note but with the coo note, already de- 

 scribed, which we never heard her use in 1910, but which 

 became her regular call from the nest in 1911. Soon after 

 uttering the whee the male reverted to the masculine 00, and 

 he continued to use this note until he flew out of the wood. 

 The exact meaning of these changes of utterance are, I am 

 afraid, beyond even our powers of conjecture. A similar 

 change had occurred, as I have mentioned, under entirely 

 different circumstances, in the pre-nesting period, and we can 

 only say that they seemed to be expressions of intense 

 emotion in connection with the nest. 



One incident in 1910 seems especially illustrative of the 

 development of parental instincts in the male. One evening 

 shortly after the female had begun to incubate, we unwittingly 

 disturbed her from the nest. When the male woke up he 

 apparently became aware of his mate's absence from her 

 domicile, and after calling repeatedly he flew on to the edge 

 of the nest as if seeking an explanation. He sat there in a 

 quandary, turning his head round from the nest to the sur- 

 rounding trees and then back again to the nest. He seemed 



