=The Short-eared Owl Breeding on Nantucket.=—In ‘The Auk’ for January, 1919, Mr. Francis H. Allen, reporting the occurrence of the Short-eared Owl (_Asio flammeus_) at Nantucket in August, 1918, speaks of the somewhat doubtful status of this Owl as a breeding bird in Massachusetts, and quotes the opinion of Mr. George H. Mackay that at one time it doubtless bred quite regularly on Nantucket and more rarely on Muskeget Island.
There is, I think, good reason to believe that this Owl has nested on Nantucket in recent years not less regularly than in the past. In the years 1908 to 1912 when, in the month of June, I explored the island intent on its plants, but always with a side eye to birds, the Short-eared Owl was frequently met with, this and the Marsh Hawk appearing to be the only raptorial birds of the island at that season. In 1912 it was more numerous than at any time before, or else chance made it so appear, and between June 27 and July 14 not less than twelve were observed. On June 10, 1908, a nest containing two eggs, evidently fresh, was found in Trot’s swamp on the western side of the island. The locality was a dryish open part of the swamp less than an acre in extent hemmed about on all sides by thickets that were in many places swampy and impassable. The nest, a slight structure of grasses and other light material, was set in a cluster of hay-scented fern (_Denntstædtia punctilobula_) whose delicate fronds rising around the margin of the nest gave less protection than concealment and, indeed, little concealment from above, for down within the encircling ferns the eggs were in open view. At this spot the ground was slightly raised above the level of the swamp, and the unrestrained growth of this fern attested that here, even in a wet season, the soil must be free from saturation. The sitting bird left the nest at my near approach, when its mate almost immediately appeared, both birds ranging widely about well in the air at no time coming very near and, at intervals, almost pausing in their flight directly overhead. One or both birds continually repeated a weak and expressionless guttural note—as memory now recalls it. The eggs, measured at the nest and replaced, were 1.37 and 1.44 inches in length—small for the species according to published measurements.
