54 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



eastern localities* may not, occasionally at least, visit 

 our coast in autumn ? Of this I liave no direct proof 

 at the present time, but all I have known to be killed 

 or wounded here, by the telegraph wires, have been 

 invariably picked up in the three last months of the 

 year. The Norwich specimen differs from any I have 

 ever seen killed in this country (although the young birds 

 of the year are more or less dark on the under parts), in 

 having the whole of the lower surface of the body rich 

 reddish fawn colour ; the facial disk rusty red, becoming 

 greyish white only, near the outer edge, and the upper 

 portions of the plumage ash grey spotted as usual, but 

 still with a little more intermixture of buff than in the 

 Danish bird. 



SYRNIUM STRIDULUM (Linnaeus). 



TAWNY OWL. 



This species I am sorry to say, from constant perse- 

 cution, is becoming extremely scarce in this county, 

 although still resident in some of the more densely 

 wooded localities; but if the benefits it confers as a 

 vermin killer were only fairly considered, its wild Jioo, hoo, 

 hootf in the still twUight, would be a welcome sound 

 to both farmer and naturalist. Mr. Gould has well 

 remarked — ^^Were it possible for a pair of brown owls 

 to produce a yearly record of the number of nocturnal 

 moles, Norway rats, and destructive field mice they have 

 destroyed, against a similar account of what has been 

 done in this way by any five keepers, I question whether 



* The Bam Owl does not seem to range further north than 

 Jutland. In Sweden it is only of accidental occurrence, and that 

 in the extreme south. — Nilsson, ' Skand. Fauna,' Foglarna, i., 

 p. 134, 3rd ed. 



