142 
E. A. MINCHIN AND H. M. WOODCOCK. 
that period. The otlier of us (H. M. W.) stayed on at 
Rovigno, continuing the work alone, until the beginning of 
July, when, after a stay of six months, he was also obliged to 
return on account of other work. There can be no doubt 
that if our visit to Rovigno could have been arranged for the 
six summer months, say from April to September, it would 
have been much more successful than it was. Still, we are 
able to bring forward certain definite observations, which 
may contribute towards the settlement of this difficult and 
much-debated question. 
We take this opportunity of expressing our very grateful 
acknowledgments and thanks to the various people through 
whose courtesy and kindness we were enabled to undertake 
and prosecute this research; we were especially indebted to 
the late Dr. Hermes, the Director of the Zoological Station at 
Rovigno, for placing laboratory accommodation at our dis- 
posal, and to Dr. Krumbach, in charge of the Station, for his 
great assistance in endeavouring to obtain the owls. 
The Birds axd their Parasites. 
At the outset we experienced a sad disillusionment in 
connection with the supply of owls. Although little owls 
were not scarce in the district, they were extremely difficult 
to procure. In the course of a month, in spite of all our 
efforts, we could only obtain five birds locally, which were 
brought in mostly in a wounded or dying condition after 
being shot. We tried several times to find haunts or nesting- 
places of the owls, but without any success. These difficulties 
in regard to the local birds did not affect us so much, however, 
as we feared at first would be the case, because (somewhat to 
our surprise), none of the above five birds showed signs of any 
liaemoprotozoan infection at all after thorough examination. 
After we had been at Rovigno a month we managed to obtain 
some owls from Vienna which were infected; and thence- 
forward we relied altogether upon dealers in Vienna and also 
in Breslau for our supply of birds. The only other local owl 
