1^ Hahits of the Barn Owl, 



managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. 

 However, in 1813, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, 

 having suffered myself, and learned mercy, I broke in pieces 

 the code of penal laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper 

 and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hither- 

 to put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of 

 this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe. On the ruin of the 

 old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the 

 lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I 

 made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. square, and 

 fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it. Huge masses of ivy 

 now quite cover it. In about a month or so after it was 

 finished, a pair of barn owls came and took up their abode in 

 it. .1 threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after this, he 

 molested either the old birds or their young ones; and I 

 assured the housekeeper that I would take upon myself the 

 whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe, and sorrow that 

 the new tenants might bring into the Hall. She made a low 

 courtesy; as much as to say, " Sir, I fall into your will and 

 pleasure : " but I saw in her eye that she had made up her 

 mind to have to do with things of fearful and portentous 

 shape, and to hear many a midnight wailing in the surround- 

 ing woods. I do not think that, up to the day of this old 

 lady's death, which took place in her eighty-fourth year, she 

 ever looked with pleasure or contentment on the barn owl, as 

 it flew round the large sycamore trees which grow near the old 

 ruined gateway. 



When I found that this first settlement on the gateway had 

 succeeded so well, I set about forming other establishments. 

 This year I have had four broods, and I trust that next sea- 

 son 1 can calculate on having nine. This will be a pretty 

 increase, and it will help to supply the place of those which 

 in this neighbourhood are still unfortunately doomed to 

 death, by the hand of cruelty or superstition. We can now 

 always have a peep at the owls, in their habitation on the old 

 ruined gateway, whenever we choose. Confident of protec- 

 tion, these pretty birds betray no fear when the stranger 

 mounts up to their place of abode. I would here venture a 

 surmise, that the barn owl sleeps standing. Whenever we go 

 to look at it, we invariably see it upon the perch bolt upright, 

 and often with its eyes closed, apparently fast asleep. Buffon 

 and Bewick err (no doubt, unintentionally) when they say 

 that the barn owl snores during its repose. What they took 

 for snoring was the cry of the young birds for food. I had 

 fully satisfied myself on this score some years ago. How- 

 ever, in December, 1823, I was much astonished to hear this 

 same snoring kind of noise, which had been so common in the 



