NOTES AND QUERIES. 265 



communication and my own point to exactly the same conclusion as 

 regards Mr. Gyngell's " Sound No. 1," i. e. that the latter is the cry of 

 the female. When I call this cry " more or less dissyllabic," I mean 

 that it is slurred downwards and very prolonged ; there is no dividing 

 line between first and second syllables as in the cry of the Cuckoo, but 

 only a gradual transition as in the challenge-crow of the Partridge. — 

 C. B. Moffat (36, Hardwicke Street, Dublin). 



I hope^ the observations on the noises made by the Long-eared Owl 

 will continue and extend to the other species of Owl also. In Northum- 

 berland nearly every plantation has its pair of Long-eared Owls, and 

 large woods many pairs. I have visited scores of nests with eggs and 

 young, and have kept several as pets. The noises I have heard them 

 make are — (i) A short expiratory "hagh," which one can easily 

 imitate by forcing air rapidly from the chest with the mouth wide 

 open. Young iu the down and grown birds do this when approached, 

 (ii) " Snapping the beak," a sharp sound made, I think, by suddenly 

 opening the beak when the pressure inside is reduced by suction, 

 (hi) A silvery chirruping, which can be imitated by shaking a bag of 

 small silver coins for about three seconds at a time. When one of my 

 tame Owls flew to a perch where the other was sitting, the sitting one 

 nearly always greeted it with this noise. I have heard it in the woods 

 at dusk just when they are beginning to move about. These three sounds 

 are the only ones my tame Long- eared Owls ever made. The night 

 noises of wild ones I have never been able to discriminate from those 

 of the Tawny, which in Northumberland nearly always inhabits the 

 same woods. I know the long sad moan and " shoaghing" described 

 in the June ' Zoologist,' but I believe the Tawny sometimes imitates 

 the former. I am glad to be able to put them down to the Long-eared 

 on your correspondent's authority. I have never known a Long-eared 

 make any noise at all when disturbed in the daytime either from its 

 nest or roosting-place, and I must have disturbed them hundreds of 

 times. On the few occasions on which I have seen them on the move 

 at night (when I had no doubt as to the species) they have moved 

 silently from perch to perch in short flights, and I have always thought 

 them to be quiet birds. The Tawny, on the other hand, is a noisy 

 creature, frequently "hooting" (a term including a great variety of 

 noises), and uttering its loud "kee-yak." My captive Tawnies also 

 made a similar " hagh " and snap of the beak to those of the Long- 

 eared, but they never hooted, and seldom made the loud " kee-yak." 

 Once I watched three young Tawny Owls sitting on a dead branch of 

 a beech tree in the moonlight, and whenever the old ones brought them 



