BURROWING-OWL 39 
wings, and sometimes, losing their balance, fall 
prostrate and flutter on the ground. If the animal 
captured be small they proceed after a while to 
despatch it with the beak; if large they usually rise 
laboriously from the ground and fly to some distance 
with it, thus giving time for the wounds inflicted 
by the claws to do their work. 
At sunset the Owls begin to hoot ; a short followed 
by a long note is repeated many times with an interval 
of a second of silence. There is nothing dreary or 
solemn in this performance; the voice is rather 
soft and sorrowful, somewhat resembling the lowest 
notes of the flute in sound. In spring they hoot a 
great deal, many individuals responding to each 
other. 
In the evening they are often seen hovering like a 
Kestrel at a height of forty feet above the surface, and 
continuing to do so fully a minute or longer without 
altering their position. They do not drop the whole 
distance at once on their prey, but descend vertically, 
tumbling and fluttering as if wounded, to within ten 
yards of the earth, and then, after hovering a few 
seconds more, glide obliquely on to it. They prey on 
every living creature not too large to be overcome by 
them. Sometimes when a mouse is caught they tear 
off the head, tail, and feet, devouring only the body. 
The hind quarters of toads and frogs are almost in- 
variably rejected; and inasmuch as these are the 
most fleshy and succulent parts, this is a strange 
and unaccountable habit. They make an easy con- 
quest of a snake eighteen inches long, and kill it by 
