136 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the day, however, was coarse and windy enough to have driven 

 any migratory bird out of its reckoning, and October is the 

 migrants' month. 



31st. — S.W. Messrs. Mortimer and Ramm saw ten Blue- 

 throats on the coast (Pashley), but did not molest them. This 

 is the latest date any have been seen, but it was a remarkably 

 warm day for the time of year. 



November. 



10th.— W.S.W. A Barn-Owl of the fulvous type shot at 

 Lowestoft (H. Bunn). Fulvous examples are generally supposed 

 to be of foreign origin, and the high wind from S.W. last night 

 may have brought it over. This Scandinavian race was first 

 recognized in England in 1864 by the late Henry Stevenson. 



11th. — We have a very late Barn- Owl's nest in an elm-tree in 

 a hole in an arm four feet deep and a foot wide about, and how 

 the old bird gets down to the young ones and then returns is 

 somewhat of a mystery. Barn-Owls, like Wood-Pigeons, are 

 distinctly irregular in their time of nesting. They generally 

 make use of a tree, but a hollow arm is safer. Here they con- 

 struct no nest, and any sticks which may be found are sticks 

 which have been brought in by a former owner. If disturbed 

 they often try to impart terror into the intruder by a ludicrous 

 swaying to and fro of the body, which at the same time is attenu- 

 ated by muscular contraction of the feathers. Other Owls have 

 their characteristic ways of defiance, but quite different from the 

 habits of our mousing favourite, the Barn-Owl, whose white 

 body seen swaying in the dark quickly shows a fresh comer that 

 the residence is occupied. In this instance they selected a 

 hole which in a previous season had produced a brood of young 

 Tawnys. 



20th. — Another Barn-Owl's nest, containing only two young 

 ones, however — one of them in the down, and the otheralmost as 

 fully feathered as its parents — an extraordinary contrast, for the 

 elder bird may have sat upon and hatched the egg from which 

 the younger one came. Two is a very small family, for the 

 Barn-Owl will sometimes have six, and I have twice found as 

 many as seven eggs. When the young are nearly half-grown 

 they make a peculiar wheezing or snoring sound, which, I believe. 



