98 
LONG-EARED OWL. 
darkening to^vards the tips ; secondarias more finely barred, and 
powdered with white and dusky ; tail rounded at the end, of the same 
length with the wings, beautifully barred and marbled with dull white 
and pale rusty, on a dark brown ground ; throat and breast clouded 
with rusty, cream, black and white; belly beautifully streaked with 
large arrow-heads of black ; legs and thighs plain pale rusty, feathered 
to the claws, which are blue black, large and sharp ; inside of the wing 
brownish yellow, with a large spot of black at the root of the primaries. 
This was a female. Of the male I cannot speak precisely ; though 
from the numbers of these birds which I have examined in the Autumn, 
when it is ^difficult to ascertain their sex, I conjecture that they differ 
very little in color. 
About six or seven miles below Philadelphia, and not far from the 
Delaware, is a low swamp,* thickly covered with trees, and inundated 
during great part of the year. This place is the resort of great 
numbers of the Qua-bird, or Night Raven {Ar-dca nr/cticorax), where 
they build in large companies. On the twenty-fifth of April, while 
wading among the dark recesses of this forest, observing the habits of 
these birds, I discovered a Long-cared Otvl, 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. Thus we see how unvarying are the manners of this 
species, however remote and different the counti-ies may be where it has 
taken up its residence. 
* Commonly known by the name of CocJcer's swamp, from time immemorial a 
noted place for the shooting of Woodcocks. 
