6o THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



The " Milkman's Whistle " of the Barn Owl.— The Barn 



Owl is rather a scarce species in Renfrewshire, and it was not until 

 the early spring of 19 14 that I became acquainted with some of 

 its notes, particularly of one which locally we have named the 

 " milkman's whistle." When first I heard this note I thought it 

 was the whistling of the county motor fire brigade passing along a 

 good distance away, although actually the pair of owls were only 

 100 or 200 yards from me. Hearing the note often after that, I 

 always referred to it as the Barn Owl's fire brigade whistle, until my 

 friends, Messrs Robert and Hugh Wilson, happening to ask a West 

 Renfrew farmer, at whose farm the bird breeds, if he ever heard it 

 utter any note when it was flying about, were told that it passed 

 overhead at night with a whistle "just like a milkman's whistle.'' 

 We thought the farmer's description most apt, and adopted it. Most 

 people who have been near a Barn Owl's nest in the evening, 

 especially if the young were well grown, must be familiar with the 

 snoring or hissing sound emitted then by old and young alike, at 

 rest and on the wing. Most vehement when an old bird arrives 

 with a luckless mouse, one can liken it in one's imagination to the 

 heavy breathing of some slumbering giant, or, to be more prosaic, 

 to the hiss which escapes at regular intervals from the Westinghouse 

 brake mechanism of a railway engine which is standing at a wayside 

 station. This hissing note at the nest is the background, as it were, 

 of the whistle, which is reinforced by many vibratory " birls," 

 producing an effect so like an ordinary alarm-whistle that even 

 yet, at times, when I hear it, I cannot decide instantly whether it is 

 really the Barn Owl or some person blowing a whistle. I have often 

 heard it when two birds, evidently paired, were flying together. 

 What I take to be the female has a shriller whistle with more hiss 

 in it than the male has. The male — at least I believe it is the male 

 — in addition to the " milkman's whistle " has a round note, liquid 

 and tremulous, a note so beautiful that unless one actually knew, 

 one could scarcely give an Owl credit for having such a melodious 

 voice. It has some resemblance to a succession of short hoots 

 which the Tawny Owl sometimes runs together, but it is much softer 

 and more liquid than these. The whistling note is oftenest heard 

 just at dusk, but on moonlight nights I have heard it at all hours. 

 On dark nights it is not so often heard. As to seasons, the note is 

 most frequently uttered in spring and summer, although I have 

 heard it in every month but December, and probably it is to be 

 heard then too. The melodious note of the male I have heard only 

 when he was escorting his partner over the meadows in spring. — 

 John Robertson, Glasgow. 



