ORNITHOLOGIST 
— A N I) — 
OOLOGIST. 
f 1.00 per 
Annum. 
Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 
Established, March, 1875. 
Single Copy, 
10 Cents. 
VOL. VII. 
NOR’WICH, CONN., OCTOBER, 1882. 
No. 21. 
American Long-eared Owl. 
OUR FIRST owl’s NEST. 
For several seasons we worked indus¬ 
triously, sparing neither shoe leather nor 
horse flesh, in the hope of finding an owl’s 
nest, and that the first one would jirove 
that of a GreaLhorned Owl. But each sea¬ 
son passed away without success, and we 
the more determined not to buy, but to 
persevere until success crowned our efforts, 
when in the early Spring of 1879 we re¬ 
ceived a box from Portland, Conn., con¬ 
taining two beautiful eggs of the Great¬ 
horned Owl, a present from W. W. Coe, 
wdio has taken the eggs so many years in 
succession from this pair that he now 
jokingly alludes to them as the “ Coe 
strain.” The eggs in question were so far 
advanced in incubation that one of the 
young ones poked his bill through the 
shell as they lay on the table, and yet 
through Mr. Coe’s patience and persever¬ 
ance a set of eggs were produced fine 
enough to place in any cabinet. Although 
this set of eggs were thankfully received, 
it did not cure the desire to find an owl's 
nest, and when the season of 1880 opened 
we still persevered until April 4, when 
passing through a hemlock grove in a de¬ 
serted heronry, in the town of Ellington, 
Ct., we discovered droppings and castings. 
On looking up the tree a Long-eared Owl 
{Asia Americanus) left it for a short flight. 
Without stopping to think, we mounted the 
tree on a fruitless search. As soon as we 
got down the owl returned to the next 
tree, when our German companion got ex¬ 
cited and wanted to borrowa gun; in fact. 
anything to get the owl. We told him to 
keep cool and we would go up the tree and 
get it for him. 
We started stealthily up the hemlock. 
The owd kept his eye on oiu’ friend 
until we got within two feet of it, when its 
head came around, and he looked us in the 
face. We moved not a muscle, but looked 
him straight in the eye, when hearing our 
friend step on a rotten stick, its head 
turned once more, and taking advantage of 
this we gently moved one branch higher, 
and wdth a quick movement of the right 
hand we took him from the limb. To say 
that both of us were surprised wmuld hard¬ 
ly express it. The German sent up a shout 
of exultation in broken English. We 
carefully descended with our captive, and 
our German friend prepared to tie up the 
owl in his handkerchief. We examined 
it carefully, and w'hile handing it to 
him we pm-posely let it go. The owl 
went off as noislessly as a butterfly and 
looked at us from another tree with a per¬ 
fect indifterence. We left the place jileased 
with our experience but our friend had lost 
his owl and was not happy. 
April 11th. We again went to the her¬ 
onry and saw both owls several times. 
Climbed to several nests but found no eggs. 
April 18. Our friend went over alone 
and found both owls on one nest. They 
left it when he went near the tree. April 
2.5. We again went to the heronry with 
our friend, who jiointed out the tree in 
which he had previously found the nest 
containing the owls. As we struck the 
tree one of the owls left the nest, and 
when we had climbed two-thirds of the 
