130 
BIRDS OF PREY. 
and with the disk of slender feathers round the face well marked 
and complete. The feet thickly covered to the claws with short 
feathers. (The habits chiefly nocturnal.) 
t With the head tufted with ear -like appendages. 
LONG-EARED OWL. 
( Strix otus , Lin. Wilson, vi. p. 73. pi. 51. fig. 3. Philad. Museum, 
No. 434.) 
Spec. Charact. — Mottled; primaries banded with ferruginous ; 
ear-tufts, long, of about 6 feathers ; wings extending to the tip of 
the tail. 
This species, like several others of the genus, appears 
to be almost a denizen of the world, being found from 
Hudson’s Bay to the West Indies, throughout Europe, 
in Africa, northern Asia, and probably China, in all 
which countries it appears to be resident ; but seems 
more abundant in certain places in winter, following rats 
and mice to their retreats in or near houses and barns. 
They commonly lodge in ruined buildings, the caverns 
of rocks, or in hollow trees. It defends itself with great 
spirit from the attacks of larger birds, making a ready 
use of its bill and talons, and when wounded is danger- 
ous and resolute. 
The Long-Eared Owl seldom, if ever, takes the trou- 
ble to construct a nest of its own ; it seeks shelter amidst 
ruins, and in the accidental hollows of trees, and rests 
content with the dilapidated nursery of the Crow, the 
Magpye, that of the Wild Pigeon, of the Buzzard, or 
even the tufted retreat of the squirrel. True to these 
habits, Wilson found one of these Owls sitting on her 
eggs in the deserted nest of the Qua-bird, on the 25th of 
April, near Philadelphia, in the midst of the gloomy en- 
swamped forest which formed the usual resort of these 
solitary Herons* So well satisfied was she in fact with 
