482 STRIX FLAMMEA. 



betake themselves to the outside of the stacks, where all night 

 long they sport amongst the extremities of the sheaves, and 

 doubtless drink the crystal dew-drops in their season. From 

 his watch-tower the owl swoops down amongst them, or nimbly 

 seizes them as he glides between the stacks. A sorry adept 

 indeed he must be if he does not often secure one in each foot 

 at a time. Five or six years ago, in the month of June, July, 

 and August, I have often, with the assistance of a terrier, 

 killed from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty mice 

 in one stack, containing the produce of about two acres and 

 a half. In the very centre of the stack, about three feet from 

 the ground, where the heads of the first six or eight sheaves 

 meet, I have frequently seen about a peck of grain separated 

 from the ears, and so broken by their gnawing as to resemble 

 very coarse meal. Nor must we forget the owl's services in 

 the meadow and corn-field. With such facts before his eyes, 

 where is the man who has the least interest in the cultivation 

 of the soil, that will not protect this beautiful and highly use- 

 ful bird ? I have endeavoured to put it on a good footing with 

 game-keepers, but apparently with no better success than in 

 the case of the poor Kestrel. Although Mr Jenyns, in his 

 valuable Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, says that the 

 Barn Owl rejects the Shrew, I found in the stomach of one 

 which I procured on the 30th November 1839, an entire indi- 

 vidual of the Sorex araneus, of which the bones only were 

 broken." 



The above account, I believe, contains as much of the history 

 of this bird as is well known ; but I cannot conclude without 

 referring the reader to a very pleasing paper on its habits, in 

 Mr Waterton's Essays on Natural History, in which its hoot- 

 ing, said to have been heard by a naturalist, is put much 

 on the same footing as the double-doored nest of the Long- 

 tailed Mufflin. 



Young. — When fledged, the young have the bill and inside 

 of the mouth pale flesh-coloured, the iris black, the scutella and 

 claws pale purplish-brown. By this time the thin edge of the 

 middle claw, which was at first entire, is partially serrated, hav- 



