62 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



is as applicable now as in former times. The plea 

 raised for tlie protection of tlie kestrel may indeed be 

 urged for this true ^' farmer's friend," whose peccadilloes, 

 if any, are slight indeed in comparison with its nightly 

 services. ^' When it has yonng," says Mr. Waterton 

 from personal observation, '^ It will bring a mouse 

 to its nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes ; but, 

 in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity 

 of mice which this bird destroys, we must examine the 

 pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of 

 its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven 

 skeletons of mice. In sixteen months, from the time 

 that the apartment of the owls on the old gateway was 

 cleaned out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel 

 of peUets." Think of this ; whoever would, wantonly, 

 discharge his gun at so useful a bird ! and let not the 

 sins of his race be visited upon him, nor his soft white 

 plumage be left to flutter in the wind, amongst the 

 feathered felons of the " Keeper's Museum." What a 

 pleasure it is in an autumnal evening, when returning at 

 sunset after a long day's sport, to watch this owl on 

 noiseless vdngs flitting about the homestead. Now 

 skimming along the fences in search of prey, now rapidly 

 turning the comer of the stack-yard, it suddenly seizes 

 upon some luckless victim, and is off in an instant to its 

 roost in the tower, or disappears for a time through the 

 little opening in the gable end of the barn. Its wild 

 screech uttered in the " stilly night" is certainly some- 

 what startling to the nerves, and, heard amidst the ruins 

 of some crumbling cloisters, may well scare the listener 

 unaccustomed to the sound ; yet scarcely would one wish 

 the rustic mind altogether disabused of its old super- 

 stitions, if the association of this owl with "uncanny 

 things," might aid in preserving it from unreasoning per- 

 secution. I would rather that every thoughtless clod, who 

 compassed the death of either old or young, might share 



