LONG-EARED OWL. 137 



adhering, and lined with fresh grass and sheep wool, but without feathers. 

 The eggs are usually four, nearly equally rounded at both ends, thin-shelled, 

 smooth, when newly deposited pure white, with a slight blush, which is no 

 longer observable when they have been for some time sitten upon; their ave- 

 rage length an inch and a half, their greatest breadth an inch and three-six- 

 teenths. I found eggs of this bird on the 15th of April, and again on the 

 25th of June, which induces me to believe that it rears two broods in the 

 season in the State of Pennsylvania, as it probably does also to the westward. 

 Wilson relates the following instance of its indifference as to the place se- 

 lected for its eggs. "About six or seven miles below Philadelphia, and not 

 far from the Delaware, is a low swamp, thickly covered with trees, and in- 

 undated during great part of the year. This place is the resort of great num- 

 bers of the Qua-bird or Night Raven {Jlrdea Nycticorax), where they build 

 in large companies. On the 25th of April, while wading among the dark 

 recesses of this place, observing the habits of these birds, I discovered a 

 Long-eared Owl, which had taken possession of one of their nests, and was 

 sitting: on mounting to the nest, I found it contained four eggs, and breaking 

 one of these, the young appeared almost ready to leave the shell. There 

 were numbers of the Qua-birds' nests on the adjoining trees all around, and 

 one of them actually on the same tree." 



When encamped in the woods, I have frequently heard the notes of this 

 bird at night. Its cry is prolonged and plaintive, though consisting of not 

 more than two or three notes repeated at intervals. 



Dr. Richardson states that it has been found "as far north as lat. 60°, and 

 probably exists as high as the forests extend. It is plentiful in the woods 

 skirting the plains of the Saskatchewan, frequents the coast of Hudson's Bay 

 only in the summer, and retires into the interior in the winter. It resides 

 all the year in the United States, and perhaps is not a rare bird in any part 

 of North America; but as it comes seldom abroad in the day, fewer speci- 

 mens are obtained of it than of the other Owls. It preys chiefly on quadru- 

 peds of the genus Jlrvicola, and in summer destroys many beetles. It lays 

 three or four roundish white eggs, sometimes on the ground, at other times 

 in the deserted nests of other birds in low bushes. Mr. Hutchins says it 

 lays in April, and that the young fly in May; and Mr. Drummond found a 

 nest on the ground, containing three eggs, on the 5th of July, and killed 

 both the birds. On comparing the above mentioned eggs with those of the 

 English Long-eared Owl, the American ones proved to be smaller, measur- 

 ing only an inch and a half in length, and 1.27 inches in breadth; while the 

 English ones measured 1.8 inch in length, and 1^ in breadth. The form 

 and colour were the same in both." 



The food of this Owl consists of rats, mice, and other small quadrupeds, 



Vol. I. 21 



