one of these, whose wing had been injured, we kept for some days in the tents; but after a time it dis-
appeared, having probably hopped off in the night.”—Osdbert Salvin.

“Very common in Corfu during the summer months, arriving about the beginning of April, and breeding
jn the old olive-groves, which, from that time till the middle of October, resound with their melancholy and
monotonous cry. The favourite food of a Scops Owl which I kept alive at Corfu for some months was
the Humming-bird Moth, which abounds in the island in August and September. In the year 1857 I
observed one of this species in the island as late as the 17th of November. I was gravely assured by a
Spanish lady that this species and the Barn-Owl enter the chapels and churches in Andalusia to drink the
oil in the lamps which are kept burning in the shrines of the saints, and that it behoved all good Christians
to slay them whenever they found them—adding, ‘Son las gallinas del demonio, Senor.’ ”—Lord Lilford.

“Mr. Howard Saunders informs me that ‘“ the Scops-eared Owl is abundant near, and almost in Seville :
five minutes’ walk from the Cathedral you may hear the male’s clear ringing ‘ Kiou’ any evening; the
female’s note is said to be merely ‘ Cu,’ not the rounded ‘ Coo’ of the Wood Pigeon. Athene noctua, on the
contrary, mews like a cat, and also utters ‘ Cu-Cu,’ always double and often repeated.”

“During my ramble in the grounds of the Casa de Campo, to the south of Madrid, I suddenly came face to
face with a Scops Owl which was sitting tightly drawn up against the trunk of an elm, about 5 feet from
the ground. We contemplated each other, no doubt with mutual admiration, for some minutes, till the
Owl, after bowing politely several times, retired to a thick ilex at some distance, where I left him. This
species was then beginning to make its appearance in Castile ; a fortnight later it was very abundant, and
its melancholy ‘ keeyou, keeyou’ to be heard throughout the night, and often during the day, in all parts
of the country.”—Lord Lilford, ‘The Ibis,’ 1866, p- 176.

“Very plentiful in the seasons of its migrations, and by far the commonest Owl found in Malta. It
commences arriving towards the end of February or beginning of March, and continues passing till May,
reappearing in September, October, and November. It is sold in the market. in great numbers with
Nightjars and other birds for the table, and is considered good eating by the natives. It is easily tamed
and becomes very familiar in captivity. A few probably winter on the island, as individuals are taken in
December and January. In 1862-63 I obtained nearly a dozen specimens in the market at different times
during these months.” —Mr. Wright, 1864.

“On the 27th of November, 1861, an adult male of this pretty little Owl was picked up dead near the
Lighthouse at Cromer, in Norfolk, against which it had in all probability flown with great force, attracted by
the glare of the lamps. The head was uninjured, and the plumage perfect, but the flesh on the breast and
the point of one wing showed symptoms of having sustained a very severe blow. The stomach contained
a mass of fur about the size of a walnut, amongst which was discernible an almost entire skeleton of a
mouse, the heads and forceps of several earwigs, and three stout caterpillars, nearly an inch in length.”
Stevenson.

“Very common in spring in old ruins and olive-groves, returning to Palestine about the middle of April.
We found the nests both in the walls of ruins and in hollow trees. No less than four birds were caught
on their eggs in holes of olive trees. It does not come out so soon as the Athene persica, indeed is seldom
heard until after sunset.”— Tristram, ‘The Ibis, 1865, p- 261.

The late Mr. W. Spence, the well-known entomologist, recorded the following account of its summer
habits in the 5th vol. of ‘Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History :’—* This Owl, which in summer is very
common in Italy, is remarkable for the constancy and regularity with which it utters its peculiar note or
cry. It does not merely ‘to the moon complain’ occasionally, but keeps repeating its plaintive and
monotonous cry of ‘ kew, kew’ (whence its Florentine name of Chit, pronounced almost exactly like the English
letter Q), at regular intervals of about two seconds the livelong night ; and, until one is used to it, nothing
can well be more wearisome. ‘Towards the end of April 1830 one of these Owls established itself in
the large Jardin Anglais, behind the house where we resided at Florence ; and until our departure in the
beginning of June, I recollect but one or two instances in which it was not constantly heard (as if in spite
of the Nightingales which abounded there from nightfall to midnight, and probably much later) whenever
I chanced to be in the back part of the house or took our friends to listen to it, and always with the same
unwearied cries, and the intervals between each as regular as the ticking of a pendulum. This Owl,
according to Professor Savi’s excellent Ornitologia Toscana, vol. i. p. 74, is the only Italian species which
migrates, passing the winter in Africa, and the summer in the south of Europe. It feeds upon beetles,
grasshoppers, insects.”

The Plate represents a male and a female, of the size of life, on a branch of the common Yew, Zaazus
baccata,—the grey bird being the former, and the brown one the latter. The moth is the Death’s-head of
English collectors, the Sphina Atropos of Linnzeus.