174 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



practical ornithologist, knows the bird well, and he told me he 

 had found its nest and eggs on two occasions amongst the 

 heather on the moors. Many years ago I captured a newly 

 fledged Short-eared Owl in Dumfriesshire, on Lochar Moss.' 

 Brennan of Ulpha volunteered that he had once found a nest 

 of young Short-eared Owls on Foulshaw Moss about the year 

 1880. Mr. Durnford records, but with meagre particulars, an 

 instance of this Owl breeding on the borders of Lancashire and 

 Westmorland, in the Field of June 19, 1880. The late Jerry 

 Smith produced a specimen of this Owl, which he had taken 

 from a nest on Lowmoor, near Aspatria, and reared as a pet. It 

 was accidentally poisoned, and he bitterly lamented its demise. 

 James Smith found a nest of the Short-eared Owl containing 

 two addled eggs and one young bird, in half-down, on the 11th 

 of May 1889, upon one of the mosses in the neighbourhood of 

 our coast. I had arranged for him to accompany me over the 

 ' flow/ but the morning proving wet, I waited for the weather 

 to mend, and my man started off without me. After crossing a 

 broad expanse of flat moor and short heather, he came to a 

 narrow strip of old heather, divided by a deep trench from a bed 

 of bracken. Here his attention was attracted by seeing the old 

 male Owl hawking on the wing. While watching this bird he saw 

 his mate join him. The two birds then proceeded to fly around 

 in great distress, while Smith searched for their nest. This was 

 a scratching in the ground, measuring about 20 inches across, 

 surrounded by dwarf willows and tall heather. When I visited 

 the nest it contained only a few feathers and bones of the 

 Sky Lark, but we found the remains of two very young rabbits 

 about forty yards away. The male had evidently been in the 

 habit of perching on a bare stump which projected from the 

 summit of a hillock. Numerous pellets attested to the frequency 

 with which the spot had been visited. About the third week 

 in June the same year, while I was away in Scotland, a keeper 

 in the same district happened to find another nest of this Owl. 

 This fellow shot the old hen at the nest, and killed her six owlets. 

 They were quite helpless, poor innocents, the youngest being 

 only a few days old, while the eldest had not begun to exchange 

 the yellow down, which at first invests the body of this Owl, 



