SESSION 1913-1914. 



I.— A PAIR OF LONG-EARED OWLS. 



By Mr J. C. ADAM. 



{Communicated, Nov. 26, 1913.) 



As a diurnal animal man is sadly handicapped in his deal- 

 ings with creatures of the night, and I think it wise to bear 

 witness at the outset to the personal deficiencies which my 

 coadjutor — Mr S. E. Brock — and myself share with the rest 

 of civilised mankind.. In spite of our assiduity — and upon 

 my coadjutor's part it was tireless — we only had glimpses of 

 this family of Long-eared Owls — a few clear ones in the full 

 light of day, but many dim shadowy ones caught by strained 

 eyes and ears in the twilight or the dead of night. We 

 were in the position of some crepuscular-living visitor from 

 another planet who, bent upon a study of civilised man, con- 

 centrated his attention upon a single family, and found his 

 only profitable period of observation limited to the half-hour 

 or so between dawn and daylight — that pregnant interval 

 between bed and breakfast in the early months of the year. 

 Picture this celestial student watching night after night while 

 the family slumbered — how eagerly he would welcome a 

 burglar or a hungry infant setting the household stirring in 

 the small hours ; how anxiously he would fasten upon his 

 subjects from the first signs of wakening in the morning, 

 noting and interpreting according to his lights every move- 

 ment, every gesture — all the minutiae of pre - breakfast 



VOL. VII. E 



