383 Mr. W. H. Simpson on some of the Birds 



village, they are not much disturbed : the only creatures that 

 share with them possession of the ruin are one or two Little Owls, 

 and a pair of Storks, which have built a large nest on the top of 

 the tallest chimney now left standing. In the course of a couple 

 of days, by carefully watching the holes, we managed to secure 

 seven or eight nests of the Little Kestrel, using for that purpose 

 two rickety ladders which the village afforded. One nest only was 

 impracticable, being placed just beneath a tottering beam covered 

 with loose stones. This was during the last week of May 1859. 



Besides the difficulties arising from the position of the Stork^a 

 nest, the inhabitants of Voukhori (much to their credit be it 

 said) were very unwilling that we should damage their beloved 

 \e\eKi. In consequence of this the nest was examined in the 

 morning before daylight, and found to contain nothing. Storks 

 should have eggs by the end of April ; therefore it is to be pre- 

 sumed that this pair was young, and had not yet succeeded in 

 producing a family. This was the only inhabited nest in the 

 district; it might be seen from a great distance crowning the 

 top of its isolated chimney, thus affording to the stranger a land- 

 mark by which he could direct his homeward course. In the 

 days of the Turks these birds were common enough, as they now 

 are in most Turkish villages. 



Another of the household birds of Greece, but one more uni- 

 versally distributed than F. cenchris through every town and 

 village of the country, is the little KovKov^ala {Athene noctua), 

 which here presents the variety to which the term meridionalis 

 has been applied. However, let it be called what you please, it 

 is the veritable " Bird of Minerva " of the old Greeks, and as such 

 is entitled to the reverence due to the familiar of the Goddess of 

 Wisdom. It frequents olive-groves, old houses, ruins, ancient 

 walls, and modern churches. To the latter it seems especially 

 attached, though hardly with a view to getting any of the sacred 

 oil, like those " fowls of the devil,'^ the Scops Eared Owl and 

 Barn Owl, in Catholic Spain (Ibis, vol. ii. p. 134). The cry of 

 the Little Owl is one of the familiar sounds of the early part of 

 the night, and is considered to be of good omen, so that even 

 the Greeks like it. The name in their language, when pro- 

 nounced rapidly, is not a bad imitation of the plaintive note 



