410 
OWL. 
which are often found in their haunts. They 
build a nest near three feet in diameter, composed 
of small branches of dry wood, interwoven with 
pliant roots and strewed with leaves. One or two 
eggs, rather bigger than those of the hen, are com- 
monly found in a nest ; it is a rare thing to meet 
with three. When the young make their appear- 
ance the parents have enough to do. Food must be 
provided to satisfy their excessive voracity ; and 
bats, snakes, lizards, toads, and frogs, are swal- 
lowed indiscriminately, So vigilant, indeed, are 
the parents in pursuit of sustenance for their off- 
spring, that they even fight with the buzzards for 
the sake of their plunder, which, when victorious, 
they carry away to their nests. 
A curious instance is related in the Stockholm 
Philosophical Transactions, of the care these birds 
take of their young, even when removed from their 
presence. M. Cronstedt resided several years on a 
farm in Sudermania, near a steep mountain, on 
whose summit two eagle owls had built their nests : 
one of the young ones, which had wandered away 
from the nest, was caught by some of the servants, 
and brought to their master, who shut it in a large 
hen-coop. The next morning a dead partridge was 
found lying close to the door of the coop ; which 
M. Cronstedt justly concluded had been brought by 
the anxious parents, who probably in the night- 
time heard the cry of their lost young one, and 
were thus led to the place of its confinement. This 
was afterwards put beyond a doubt, as the same 
