8 Coward, iCote on the Little Ozul and its Food. 



species, but to form a good idea in what proportion these 

 were eaten by the individual bird. The proportions of 

 the species probably depend more upon the character of 

 the ground over which the particular owl feeds than upon 

 its individual taste. 



The few British pellets I have examined, which were 

 all obtained at Stamford, contained remains of house 

 mouse and wood mouse, the former in largest quantities, 

 bank vole, field vole, the leg bones and a few other 

 fragments of a song thrush, a few bones of a frog, 

 fragments of many beetles, a wood louse, and an earwig. 

 Mr. G. A. Dunlop, of Warrington, kindly examined the 

 beetle remains. and found the following species represented : 

 Pterostichiis madidus, P. vulgaris, Xebria brevicollis, 

 Loricera pilicornis and Geotrupcs stcrcorarius. 



The main composition of these pellets was mammalian 

 hair, felted in the same way in which we find it in the 

 pellets of the Barn Owl and Heron, but in one or two 

 there was a considerable amount of inorganic matter, a 

 blue-gre\- clay or earth, which I took to be the oolitic 

 sand of Northamptonshire. One or two pellets were 

 almost entirely composed of clay and remains of beetles. 



Some years ago I received a number of pellets of the 

 Southern Little Owl, Carinc glaii.w from Luxor, Upper 

 Egypt. Most of these showed the same inorganic matter 

 in their composition, but in some it was desert sand which 

 had blown over and clung to the outside of the pellets. 

 In other pellets, however, I found considerable quantities 

 of sand mixed with and felted into the hair in the interior 

 of the pellet. It is fair to suggest that the owl. when 

 playing with its quarry, might have dragged the half- 

 devoured portions through the sand and thus accumulated 

 a quantity of inedible inorganic matter, but I think that 

 there is possibly another explanation. 



