SHORT EARED OWL. Class II. 



yellow feathers; the quil feathers are dusky, 

 barred with red ; the tail is of a very deep brown, 

 adorned on each side the shaft of the four middle 

 feathers with a yellow circle which contains a 

 brown spot ; the tip of the tail is white. 



The short eared owl appears to me to be La 

 Chouette of the comte de Buffon, and his moyen 

 due ou hibou, Tab. 29 of the PI. Enl. In p. 

 102 of my index to his Ornithologie and the 

 Planches enluminees I have endeavoured to 

 clear up the confusion which the illustrious 

 writer has introduced on the subject* 



The other European horned owl, the little 

 horn owl, Scops or Petit Due of M. de Buffon, 

 I. 353. is unknown in Great Britain.f 



• Arct. Zool. i. 266. 



f An intelligent friend lately informed the editor, that, in his 

 younger days, he shot in Dorsetshire, a small horned owl, and 

 that another was seen in the same county, about that period : 

 the bulk of the body was superior to that of the blackbird, and 

 nearly equal to the magpye's. Might it have been the Scops or 

 a variety of the Long eared owl ? Ed. 



