52 
STRIGIDiE. 
bootings were to be heard every evening. Whilst I was 
listening to the consultation, and taking a survey with 
my glass, an osprey flew along the edge of the cliff, and 
at a great height above us, and mellowed in the distance 
there came a full note from a Berg-ufo who no doubt 
had seen the stranger bird. This was very encouraging, 
and it did not take long to arrange the order in which 
the various likely rocks were to be visited. An active 
woodman accompanied me axe in hand. When we were 
fairly in the cliffs we came to a point where some large 
bird was in the habit of sitting to tear its prey, and fea¬ 
thers, and white feet of hares were lying about. A great 
owl flew below us, showing a beautiful expanse of back 
and wings, and as we proceeded in the direction from 
which it came another large owl rose from the face of the 
cliff, flew a hundred paces forward, turned its wide face 
towards us, and came a short distance back. I stopped 
to examine it with my glass to be quite certain it was S. 
bubo. Satisfied on this point, we only had to walk a few 
paces along a ledge before the family group was in sight: 
two blind little puffs covered with down just tinged 
with yellow, and an egg with the prisoner inside uttering 
his series of four or five chirps through the window he 
had made in the shell, with a voice scarcely more feeble 
than that of his elder brothers. There did not seem to 
be much difference in the ages of the three ; they were 
lying upon a small quantity of compressed fur, principally 
of rats, the remains of the castings of the parent birds, 
their bed nearly flat, for there was not more than two 
inches of soil. Uva-ursi and several other plants grew 
near, and a small Scotch fir-tree had its trunk curiously 
flattened to the perpendicular rock at the back ; the ledge 
was not more than two feet wide, and terminated abruptly 
just beyond the nest; the rock beneath was also perpen- 
