In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 121 
Strix Flammea, “White or Barn Owl.” We come now to the 
commonest, but one of the most beautiful of the Owl tribe, which 
is often called the “ Screech Owl,” owing to the peculiar and grating 
ery that it makes, as it glides from the nestling ivy, or the sombre 
tower, into the still calmness of a summer evening sky. Everyone 
knows and has seen the Barn Owl, with its Quixotic and triangular 
visage —looking, as it draws itself up on its perch, with a side-long 
action, as though to get a better view of you, like some knock-kneed 
shrivelled old man. It is (I rejoice to say) quite common, and 
deserves to be preserved very strictly ; as it is often asserted, and 
with perfect truth, that one Barn Owl will catch more mice than 
six cats. One of these birds was brought to me in the spring which 
had been caught while flying round one of the lamps in Salisbury ; 
but the poor thing was injured, and I was obliged to kill it and turn 
it into a fire-screen—for which purpose no birds look better than 
any of our four commoner sorts of Owls. I have kept many of 
them in confinement, but they do not stand it well, at least when 
captured as old birds, and I shall never forget the screech of delight 
with which one of these birds greeted me, as he flew from my 
hand, when, after having kept him some three months or so, I re- 
solved one summer evening to give him back his liberty. In 
connection with this species I once noticed a very curious circum- 
stance, for which I never can to this day account. It happened in 
the autumn of the year 1859. I was travelling from Wells to 
Glastonbury at the time, a distance of some six miles, and between . 
those two points I noticed no less than four White Owls, at a dis- 
tance of a mile or so from each other, either settled on the rail that 
fenced in the line, or flying close to it. I never could account for 
the reason that caused such a spontaneous neglect of the ordinary 
Owlish rules, or what could have been the cause of their unusual 
appearance at mid-day. In connection with this bird I always re- 
member one of those occurrences when there is but a hair’s breadth 
between life and death, but which, when passed, we are apt so 
quickly to forget. Some years ago I was exploring some of the 
gorges of the Mendip Hills, when I was attracted by an inviting- 
looking crevice, some considerable height above me, which promised 
