268 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



Family STRIGID^. 



Genus STRIX, Linnagus. 



BAKN-OWL. 



Strix flammea, Linnaeus. S.N., i., p. 133 (1766). 

 White Owl, Boys, 1792 ; Screecli-Owl. 



The Barn-Owl is one of the best known of all the 

 species in Kent on account of it frequenting the church 

 towers, old barns and houses, in which it builds its nest 

 and rears its young. 



Although this owl is one of the most useful birds to 

 the homestead and the farmer, they are ruthlessly 

 destroyed. 



The Eev. J. Pemberton Bartlett, writing in 1884, says : 

 " I am always grieved to see this beautiful and most use- 

 ful bird nailed, with extended w'ings, to barns and other 

 depositories of gamekeepers' trophies. It is truly the 

 farmer's friend, and at the same tiuDe I think not the 

 game-preserver's enemy ; at all events, to so slight an 

 extent is it so that the good it does abundantly counter- 

 balances its slight poaching propensities." This is — 



" The owl, that watching in the barn, 

 Sees the mouse creeping in the corn, 

 Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes 

 As if he slept — until he spies, 

 The little beast witliin his stretch — 

 Then starts and seizes on the wretch.'' 



Morris, in his British Birds, 1851, says: "The very 

 last specimen but one that I have seen was a young bird 

 perched on the exact centre of the reredos in Charing 

 Church, Kent." 



Barn Owl Preying upon Fish. — "For several nights 



