SHORT-EARED OWE, 
287 
uttering a shrill cry, and snapping with their hills. 
They will then alight at a short distance, surrey 
the aggressor, and again resume their flight and 
cries. The young are barely able to fly by the 
12th of August, and appear to leave the nest some 
time before they are able to rise from the ground. 
I have taken them, on that great day to sportsmen, 
squatted on the heath like young black game, at 
no great distance from each other, and always 
attended by the parent birds.** We have since 
occasionally observed this Owl in December and 
January ; by no means common, however, four or 
five specimens during five or six years ;t and it is 
most probable that the great proportion of those 
which breed with us return again during winter, 
and the bird is certainly much more abundant on 
the ranges of upland muir during summer than in 
any locality after the breeding season has been 
completed. Those we have seen at this season 
have been disturbed from whin covers or patches 
of long and tangled grass and bramble, sitting 
close at first, but afterwards very shy and wary. 
“ In Ireland,” Mr Thompson remarks, “ it is one 
* Wilson’s North American Ornithology, edit. Sir W. 
Jardine, ii. p. 63. Mr Hoy, in Loudon’s Magazine of 
Natural History, mentions two localities in the south- 
western part of Norfolk, where pairs of this bird breed. 
t Mr Macgillivray mentions one near Edinburgh in De- 
cember. 
