442 ULULA ALUCO. 



Habits. — In the northern parts of Scotland, this species is 

 seldom if ever met with ; but in the wooded portions of the 

 middle and southern divisions, it is more frequently obtained 

 than any other, excepting the Long-eared and Barn Owls. In 

 most parts of England suited to its nature, it has also been ob- 

 served, and in some is said to be nearly as common as any 

 other species. Its habits are strictly nocturnal, and when 

 forced from its retreat by day, it is oppressed by the glare of 

 light, seems bewildered, and may easily be destroyed. It is 

 generally in the shade of some dense wood that it reposes, 

 usually in an elevated station among the branches, but some- 

 times on the ground. At night, it emits a loud and doleful 

 cry, which has been likened to the syllables hoo-hoo-hoo, and 

 which Buffon remarks " has a considerable resemblance to the 

 cry of the wolf, a circumstance which induced the Latins to 

 give it the name of Ulula, which comes from ululare^ to howl 

 or cry like the wolf." Besides this hooting noise, as it is 

 termed, it occasionally utters a harsh scream. Its food con- 

 sists of young hares, rats, mice, moles, birds of various species, 

 beetles, and other insects. Several persons have stated that it 

 also feeds on fish, and I found the stomach of one nearly filled 

 with earth-worms, which had been torn into fragments of 

 about half an inch in length. 



I have never seen the nest of this bird. Montagu, however, 

 states that it breeds in the hollows of trees, sometimes in barns, 

 prepares very little nest, or even deposits its eggs on the de- 

 cayed wood. According to M. Temminck, it lays in the de- 

 serted nests of buzzards, crows, and magpies. The eggs, three 

 or four in number, are pure white, smooth, an inch and eleven- 

 twelfths in length, an inch and a half in breadth. The young, 

 which are at first of a dull yellowish-grey colour, are supplied 

 with mice, rats, and young hares. As stated by the Rev. Mr 

 Bree in the Magazine of Natural History, Vol. I, p. 179, they 

 are also fed with fish. " Some years since, several young owls 

 were taken from the nest, and placed in a yew tree in the gar- 

 den of Allesley Rectory, near Coventry. In this situation, the 

 parent birds repeatedly brought them live fish, bull-heads (Cot- 

 tus Gobio), and loach (Cobites barbatula), which had doubt- 



