score. I t lies close, but when disturbed will often mount
high and seem to suffer no inconvenience from the daylight.
Many of those that visit Great Britain in the autumn pass
on, while others abide through the winter and retire northward
again in the following spring. A few, however, breed
in this country from Cambridgeshire northward. Although
the fact seems to have been only published in 1833, when
Hoy first announced it in the ‘ Magazine of Natural History,’
it is certain that before the draining of the fen-country in
the east of England, the Short-eared Owl bred as regularly
and as commonly in that district as did any of the Harriers.
Now there are left but few sedgy tracts suited to it, though
nests may occasionally still be found on the upland heaths,
llie mistaken zeal of gamekeepers, however, in destroying
this and other species of Owls, which are probably the very
best friends the preserver of game could possess, precludes
the chance of such nests remaining unmolested unless placed
in the most unfrequented spots. Some eggs taken at Little-
port, in the Isle of Ely, in 1864, are the latest in this part
of England, which have come to the Editor’s knowledge;
but in August, 1854, he saw on a dry heath at Elveden, in
Suffolk, two young birds, nearly full grown but unable to
fly; and in the same year at least two nests were taken in
the fens of the south-west of Norfolk.
Mr. Rocke (Zool. p. 9687) believes that this species breeds
in Shropshire, and from Yorkshire northward to the Orkneys,
there is little doubt that it does so with more or less regularity.
Sir William Jardine describes two nests found by him in
Dumfriesshire, some forty years ago, with five eggs in each,
as being “ formed upon the ground among the heath; the
bottom of the nest scraped until the fresh earth appeared, on
which the eggs were placed, without any lining or other
accessary covering. When approaching the nest or young,
the old birds fly and hover round uttering a shrill cry, and
snapping with their bills. They will then alight a short
distance, survey the aggressor, and again resume their flight
and cries. The young are barely able to fly by the 12th of
August, and appear to leave the nest some time before they
are able to rise from the ground.” The eggs of this bird,
seldom exceeding from three to five in number, are smooth
and white, measuring from 1'74 to 1*37 by 1‘33 to D15 in.
Small quadrupeds and small birds with, according to
M. Florent-Prevost, at certain seasons beetles and other
insects, form the principal food of this Owl. Montagu
found fragments of a Sky-Lark and of a Yellow Bunting
in one and Thompson the legs of a Dunlin in another,
while the supply provided for some nestlings was, according
to Low, a Moorfowl and two Plovers. In the stomach of
one examined by myself were a half-grown rat and portions
of a bat. Mr. Swinhoe (Ibis, 1861, p. 26) states that an
example he procured in China contained a few fish-bones.
But undoubtedly field-mice and especially those of the shorttailed
group or voles are their chief objects of prey, and
when these animals increase in an extraordinary and unaccountable
way, as they sometimes do, so as to become
extremely mischievous, Owls, particularly of this species,
flock to devour them. Thus there are records of “ a sore
plague of strange mice ” in Kent and Essex in the year
1580 or 1581, and again in the county last mentioned in 1648.
In 1754 the same thing is said to have occurred at Hilgay
near Downham Market in Norfolk, while within the present
century the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and some
parts of Scotland have been similarly infested. In all these
cases Owls are mentioned as thronging to the spot and rendering
the greatest service in extirpating the pests. The
like has also been observed in Scandinavia during the wonderful
irruptions of lemmings and other small rodents to
which some districts are liable, and it would appear that the
Short-eared Owl is the species which plays a principal part
in getting rid of the destructive horde. An additional fact
of some interest was noticed by Wolley, namely that under
such circumstances the Owls seem to become more prolific
than usual, and on two occasions it came to his knowledge
that as many as seven eggs must have been laid in one nest
of this species, so that the statement of Hutchins, cited by
Richardson, that in the Fur-countries it lays ten or twelve