i9i3" I 9 I 4-] A Pair of Long-Eared Oivls. 6j 



fully a month. Then he disappeared. His sojourn in the 

 Corner for that brief period is the sole link of connection 

 between the birds of 1908 and the birds of 1910 ; but it has 

 perhaps an added significance when I point out that the 

 bushy pine (Eoost 1 on map) which he favoured for his 

 slumbers was habitually used by one or both of the Owls in 

 1908, and that it was the tree in which the male first 

 appeared in 1910. This bushy pine is perhaps a slender 

 peg upon which to hang a dynasty, but it is all the evidence 

 we have for our theory, which is briefly this — that the single 

 bird of 1909 was the sole survivor of the pair which nested 

 in 1908; that in 1909 he returned to the nesting quarters 

 but failed to obtain a mate, as is evidenced by the fact that 

 there was no nest that year; that in 1910 the same bird 

 returned again, but this time with a mate, and that this pair 

 were consequently in the true line of succession of a Long- 

 eared Owl stock which had nested in the Corner in 1908, and 

 probably for many years previously. 



It was with the appearance of the birds in 1910 that we 

 commenced the two years' observations and conjectures which 

 I propose to present to you. For convenience of treatment I 

 have gathered them under three divisions, roughly correspond- 

 ing to three periods in the Long-eared Owl's life : — 



I. Pre-nesting Period — covering the time from the first 

 appearance of the birds in the Corner to the laying of 

 the eggs. 

 II. Nesting Period — covering the time from the first days 

 of incubation to the fledging of the young. 

 III. Post -nesting Period — covering a time of which we 

 are profoundly ignorant. 



Pre-nesting Period. 



In 1910 the two birds made their first appearance in the 

 Corner on February 25; in 1911 they were first seen on 

 February 5 — a striking disparity of twenty days, to which 

 I shall have reason to refer later. These dates may be con- 

 sidered approximately the dates of the arrival of the birds in 

 their nesting quarters in these two years. Of where and how 



