WINKING OWL. 
think, but what species ? There are several of the large Owls at Mount 
Wilson, but I never heard a cry similar to this one, and I have never heard 
it here before, nor has anyone else so far as I can learn.” On the following 
day Mr. Cox wrote : “I have secured the ‘ Barking Owl,’ and it turns out to 
be Hieracoglaux connivens, and I am sending it to you. There was nothing 
in its stomach except caterpillars and mantis, but there was rabbits’ fur on 
its talons.” Mr. K. H. Bennett, in 1886, wrote: Ninox connivens was 
formerly rather plentiful along the banks of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee 
Rivers, frequenting the dense clumps of Acacias fringing the banks, and just 
about sundown, and before leaving its retreat, its deep sepulchral ‘ hoot, 
hoot,’ uttered at intervals of a few minutes, would often be heard. Usually 
it was met with in pairs, and was exclusively confined to the vicinity of the 
river banks, never being found in the timbered back country or out on the 
plains. I have not seen anything of this species for many years.” 
Mr. G. A. Keartland, of Melbourne, Victoria, added : “ Winking Owls 
{Ninox connivens) are sometimes seen in the vicinity of Melton, Victoria, 
where they pass the day in the crevices between the rocks, or in the thick 
foliage of the bushes on the margin of the creeks. Twice I disturbed them 
from rabbit burrows in the bank of the river, when using ferrets for rabbits. 
Mr. Alex. M’Innes dislodged one from between two rocks on the Werribee 
River, and on examining the spot the bird had just left, discovered a fresh 
egg lying on a few dry gum leaves. Another friend, Mr. Percy Bond, 
informed me he found an egg of this bird in a rabbit-burrow, about eighteen 
inches from the entrance, from which his ferret had just driven the Owl, 
which was shot.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has given me the following account : “ The Winking 
Owl is apparently a rare bird in West Australia, as the first specimen seen 
by me was after residing twenty-six years in various parts of the state. I was 
near Lake Muir in the south-west at the time, and was passing through 
some heavy Jarrah and Red Gum timber, close to the old stockyard of a long 
established station, about sundown, when I caught a glimpse of a large 
brown bird that I took to be a Brown Hawk at first. Seeing it settle in 
the upper branches of a tree, I took an observation of it through my 
binoculars and at once saw that it was a large Owl peering warily at me, 
and evidently about to fiy further. However, I secured it, much to my 
pleasure at obtaining a bird never before seen. It weighed 2 lbs. and 
measured 42 inches expanse of wing. Total length 17 in. ; wing 12f ; tarsus 
2 inches. It was an adult male. I showed it to the residents at the home- 
stead, who said they had never seen such a bird, as did also several of the 
old settlers in that district, who were constantly out with gun or rifle.” 
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