156 BRITISH BIRDS. 
easily distinguished from the Barn-Owl by its note. The latter bird 
utters a harsh shrill screech ; but the present species hoots a loud and clear 
hoo-hoo-hoo, or perhaps, more accurately, 6, 6, 6. Singularly startling and 
weird-like is this note of the Tawny Owl, especially when it is accompanied 
by the darkness and the silence of the forest. 
The Owls, as a rule, are only active at nightfall; consequently their 
habits are but little known. The Tawny Owl only invites you to observe 
its actions when the sun has sunk behind the horizon and the landscape 
is enshrouded in gloom. Guided by its loud and clear hooting ery, you 
may know its whereabouts; and a dissection of the pellets it ejects will 
tell you of what its food consists. Even in the forest at nightfall 
there is much to interest and instruct. Numberless strange sounds greet 
the ear, and inform you that nocturnal creatures are abroad. Now the 
rustle of the bracken tells you that some truant stoat or weasel is on a 
marauding expedition. The shrill squeal of the wood-mouse is heard as it 
burrows under the withered leaves. The almost noiseless tread of the rat 
or mole may startle you, or the purr of the Nightjar disturb your reverie, 
or you may obtain a glimpse of the rabbits holding high carnival in the 
open glades and drives. All these creatures are of nocturnal habits ; and 
many of them furnish the Tawny Owl with a meal. When the moon, 
hitherto hid behind a dense mass of cloud, peeps forth, the shadows 
suddenly lengthen, and the still forest assumes an almost daylight bright- 
ness, you may hear the Owl’s strange hooting note borne low and soft on 
the night wind, and may perchance see the bird fly softly through the 
air and alight on the dead top of an oak. At close quarters its hooting 
cries startle by their depth of tone and clearness. If you are very well 
concealed and scarcely breathe, you may see the bird ruffle up its plumage, 
sit motionless for a second, and then launch into the air. Downwards it 
seems to swoop; for the gloom will not permit you to observe it closely, 
and you can but conjecture that its bright eye, most piercing in the dark- 
ness, has detected some mouse, mole, or frog, that falls a victim to the 
noiseless approach of its enemy. But these creatures are not the Tawny 
Owl’s only prey; for it will take beetles and insects, and more rarely the 
surface-feeding fish. Occasionally it will take a benighted bird from the 
hedgerows, a Bunting, or a Whinchat, or other birds which are late in 
seeking their roosting-place (a habit which frequently costs them their 
life). 
The Tawny Owl does not escape the persecution of the game-preserver ; 
but, although not entirely guiltless of the charge of poaching, its inroads 
on the preserves are trifling, and usually confined to a feeble leveret or 
young rabbit. In its habits the Tawny Owl is strictly nocturnal, and 
rarely indeed leaves its place of concealment in the daytime unless 
disturbed. Most Owls have a great aversion to the light, yet none more 
