84 PONDS, PADDOCKS, AND AVIARIES 



"May 25M, 1889. 



" I turned down about forty little owls, about the 

 house here and over a radius of some three or four 

 miles in the neighbourhood, early in July last. Several 

 were too young to feed themselves, or, rather, to find 

 their own food, and we recaptured more than half of 

 those originally put out. A very few were found dead. 

 Several were constantly seen about ; during the summer 

 and autumn of 1888 many disappeared entirely, but 

 three or four were seen, and often heard, throughout 

 the winter. On April 23rd, 1889, one of my keepers 

 discovered a nest in the hollow bough of a high ash 

 tree in the deer-park. The old bird would not move, 

 but on being gently pushed with a stick, two eggs were 

 visible. On May 10th two young birds about a week 

 old could be made out, and on the 22nd, four or five, 

 all of different sizes. The keepers tell me that it is 

 impossible to see anything from the open end of the 

 bough, but there is a cleft near the nest from which, in 

 certain lights, the old bird and her produce can be 

 partially seen. Her mate haunts a crab tree, at a short 

 distance from the nest. This is encouraging, and I shall 

 invest largely in little owls this summer, and adopt some- 

 what different treatment. Similar experiments have been 

 tried, to my knowledge, in Hants, Sussex, Norfolk and 

 Yorkshire, but I do not know of a brood having been 

 reared in a genuinely free condition in this country, till 

 this lot of mine. The little owl will nest freely in 



