Habits of the Tawny Owl. 323 



Though the tawny owl generally takes up its abode in dark 

 and gloomy woods, still it occasionally settles very near the 

 habitation of man. In a hollow sycamore, within a dozen 

 yards of this house, there had been the nest of a tawny owl, 

 time out of mind. Here the birds would have remained to this 

 day, had not a colony of jackdaws, which I had encouraged, 

 by hanging up wooden boxes for them in the next tree, 

 actually driven the owls away, in order that they might get 

 possession of the hole. Before this misfortune befel them, a 

 servant once robbed their nest, and placed the young ones in 

 a willow cage, not far from the hollow tree. The parent birds 

 brought food for their captive offspring; but, not being able 

 to get it through the bars of the cage, they left it on the 

 ground on the outside. This food consisted of mice, rats, 

 small birds, and fish, which I myself saw and examined. At 

 the present time, I have a tawny owl, sitting on four eggs, in 

 a large ash tree, close to a much-frequented summer-house. 

 The male stays in a spruce fir tree, and hoots occasionally 

 throughout the day. I have found by dissecting the ejected 

 bolus of this species, that it feeds copiously upon different 

 sorts of beetles. 



Were I just now requested to find a hollow tree in the 

 woods of the neighbourhood, I should say that it were useless 

 to go in quest of one ; so eager have the proprietors been to 

 put into their pockets the value of every tree which was not 

 " making money," according to the cant phrase of modern 

 wood-valuers. No bird has felt this felling of ancient timber 

 more than the tawny owl. To the extreme scarcity of breed- 

 ing-holes, and to the destructive measures of the gamekeepers, 

 I attribute the great rarity of this bird in our own immediate 

 neighbourhood : add to this, that it sometimes rests on the 

 ground, under covert of a bush, where it is flushed and killed 

 by sportsmen while in pursuit of woodcocks. Were it not for 

 my park, I believe that the tawny owl would be extinct in 

 this part of Yorkshire. Some ten years ago, it was so scarce, 

 that I seldom heard its voice. Once or so, in the winter, I 

 could catch the hooting of a solitary owl as I was after the 

 midnight poachers ; but that was all : and, then, whole weeks 

 would elapse before I could hear the pleasing notes again. At 

 present, however, this favourite warbler is on the increase. 



He who befriends the tawny owl, and loves to have it near 

 his mansion, may easily make a habitation for it, provided 

 there be a wood at hand, with full-grown ash trees in it. But, 

 no wood, no tawny owl ; Point d' argent, point de Suisse, as the 

 saying has it. On examining his ash timber, he will occa- 

 sionally find a tree with a particular fungus on it; yellow when 



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