68 



A Pair of Long- Eared Owis. 



[Sess. 



they passed the winter months which preceded their arrival 

 in 1910 we know nothing. Of where and how the male 

 secured his mate we are equally ignorant. And here I might 

 emphasise the fact that none of the behaviour which I shall 

 describe can be construed as courting displays in the strict 

 sense of the phrase. The Long-eared Owls were obviously 

 mated before we saw anything of them ; all that we observed 

 was either nuptial or post-nuptial, as you care to describe it. 



You may have your introduction to the pair as they 

 appeared to us one day in March 1910 — two strangely 



tor 



Map of the Corner of the ivood, showing roosting trees of the Long-eared Owls. 



attenuated brown figures, perched, wooden-like, fifty feet 

 up under the thick crowns of two neighbouring Scots pines, 

 ear-tufts erect and the whole body, as it seemed, drawn 

 tightly together, motionless and inscrutable until the sudden 

 snapping of a note-book clasp galvanised the nearer one 

 into life. In an instant the woodenness and attenuation 

 vanished, the body was shaken out, the face shaken out, 

 and two great yellow orbs were turned down upon us, with 

 that curious expression of astonishment which the Long-eared 

 Owl wears all his waking life from his youth up, and which, 



