304 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



saying where it will be a few years hence. The gamekeeper 

 accuses it of destroying game and their eggs, but though a 

 diurnal feeder cannot be expected to refuse an occasional 

 Pheasant or Partridge chick, examination of its pellets reveals 

 no serious crime. Mice and shrews are eaten, but beetles and 

 other insects in fragments are abundant in the pellets ; the 

 usefulness of the bird is discounted by the fact that, according 

 to my own examination of pellets, many of the beetles eaten 

 were carnivorous or coprophagous species. The bird has been 

 seen hunting for and eating earthworms, and in the pellets, 

 mixed with mammalian hair, was a considerable amount of 

 earth which had probably come from the stomachs of worms. 



The call of the bird is a monotonous and far-reaching ^?/, ac^ 

 at, and some authors speak of a mewing note ; but these, I 

 think, are one and the same. Though the bird usually hunts at 

 night it is more diurnal than most owls, and will sit in bright 

 sunshine on some gate (Plate 126), branch or hedge, where it 

 suffers unwelcome attention from other birds. Its flight is 

 erratic, uncertain in direction ; its pose when perched erect. 

 The classical student and archseologist is familiar with this 

 bird of Pallas, for its figure appears on many Greek coins. 



The nest is in a hollow, but without nesting material ; holes 

 in trees, walls, rocks and quarries are occupied, and sometimes 

 the eggs are laid on the ground with hardly any shelter. Four 

 or five white eggs (Plate 131) are laid late in April or in May, 

 incubated, it is said, by the female only. The down of the 

 young is at first dull white, later reddish grey. 



The upper parts of the Little Owl are greyish brown, spotted, 

 mottled and barred with white ; the spots form streaks on the 

 head. The wings and tail are barred white and brown ; the 

 whitish under parts streaked with brown. The bill is yellow, 

 as are the irides ; the legs and toes grey, covered with hairy 

 down. Length, 9 ins. Wing, 6 ins. Tarsus, I'l ins. 



