‘THE BIRDS OF DEVON.’ 15 
they were found to be bringing up their Owlets upon young Pheasants 
robbed from some coops in the adjoining grounds. Some old cottages, 
close to the fine church at Bishop’s Lydeard, near Taunton, had their 
roofs, which all communicated, tenanted by a number of Barn-Owls that 
increased to such an extent as to become quite a nuisance, and we were 
told that from 30 to 40 were destroyed. 
Short-eared Owl (p. 130). 
This Owl must be included in the hst of birds found breeding in Devon- 
shire. In the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1893, page 231, Mr. F. H. Carruthers Gould 
records his finding a nest near Braunton in the spring of 1893. It con- 
tained three young birds, and one unfertile egg. The nest was in a 
swampy piece of ground in the middle of a bramble, and was a mere 
depression in the soil. ‘At different times we put both the male and 
female Owl] off the young. On the second occasion on which we visited 
the nest, the oldest of the young birds had gone. The old birds flew 
around us, circling in the air, and uttering a harsh cry resembling the 
syllables ‘Che-ough.’” The number of eggs laid by the Short-eared Owl 
usually varies from five to seven. However, it has been known, in Scotland, 
to lay as many as thirteen eggs in a clutch, after high feeding upon Voles, 
at a time when there was a plague of these destructive little rodents. The 
Snowy Owl is equally prolific in a good Lemming year. We have seen a 
clutch of ten eggs produced by a Barn-Owl, all fresh and not in the least 
incubated when taken ; and we have seen two clutches of the same species 
of eight eggs each. 
Tawny Owl (p. 132). 
[Local names omitted :—Brown Owl, Wood Ow], Red Owl, Hooter. | 
Mr. E. A. S. Elliot has found the eggs of this Owl in a rabbit-burrow. 
Snowy Owl (p. 134). 
The specimen killed near Plymouth, in Dec. 1838, appears to have been 
originally in the collection of Dr. Cornelius Tripe, of Devonport, at whose 
sale, in 1860, it was purchased by the Rev. W. 8. Hore. (C. F. Glinn, 
in litt.) 
Little Owl (p. 137). 
According to a correspondent of Mr. Jesse (in his ‘Scenes and Tales of 
Country Life’), a Little Owl was obtained many years ago at Tiverton. 
It does not appear to have occurred in Dorsetshire ; one was shot at 
