OWLS 27 



gamekeepers and farmers, there always follows a 

 rapid increase of mice, and consequent injury to 

 farm produce. An Owl and rat have been caught 

 in the same trap, which the rat had just reached as 

 he was seized by the Owl [Field, Dec. 14, 1895). 



Occasionally Owls have been known to take 

 fish. (See Jennings' Ornithologia, 1828, p. 55 ; Rev. 

 W. T. Bree and Charles Waterton, Mag. Nat. Hist., 

 1829, p. 179; Bolles, The Auk, 1890, pp. 101-144; 

 Bendire, "Life-Histories of American Birds," 1892, 

 p. 377 ; and editorial note in The Field, March 18, 

 1899.) The Tawny Owl, it would seem, is even 

 more addicted to an occasional fish diet than the 

 Barn Owl. In the East certain Owls of the re- 

 stricted genus Ketupa habitually prey on fish. 



Allusion is made by Shakespeare and Tennyson 

 to " the Owl and his five wits." With our early 

 writers — e.g. Chaucer in the " Parson's Tale " — the 

 five senses appear to have been generally called the 

 five wits ; but it is not clear how this proverbial 

 phrase became connected with the Owl. (See " The 

 Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 95.) 



TAWNY OWL. Syrnium aluco (Linnseus). PI. 4, fig. 4. 

 Length, 16 in. ; wing, 11-12 in. ; tarsus, 2-25 in. 



Resident in England and Scotland, and increas- 

 ing in many of the Scottish counties. Thompson 

 states ("Nat. Hist. Ireland, Birds," i. p. 94) that, 

 if included at all in the Irish fauna, it must be 

 considered extremely rare. It is mentioned, how- 

 ever, in a list of birds in Smith's " History of 



