LITTLE OWL. 17 
Or 
broad daylight. I first made its acquaintance near Smyrna, where it was 
very common. We did not very often see it; but now and then we caught 
a glimpse of it, flying from one tree to another, near the villages that 
nestled on the mountain-sides overlooking the fiat plains through which 
the river winds amongst the olive-groves and vineyards. The flight of the 
Little Owl reminded me very much of that of a Bat. It was not an undu- 
lating flight, but a steady slow beating of the wings without any apparent 
exertion; and yet there was a butterfly-like uncertainty about it, as if it 
continually changed its mind and slightly altered its course. The flight 
was very silent, occasionally very rapid; and I remember seeing it skim 
over a tree like a Partridge. In Holland I once watched a Little Owl 
flying in the garden behind the inn at Valconsward. A boy had caught 
it on the nest, and brought it to us with one egg and three young ones— 
the latter only a few days old, and covered with short pure white down 
not unlike the fur of a mole. We did not want the old bird; so we let 
her go in the garden. She had scarcely got more than forty yards from 
us when she was pursued by a mob of Starlings, Swallows, and other 
birds, from whom she soon took refuge in a chestnut-tree, to the evident 
annoyance of a Chaffinch, who immediately began to spink spink in a most 
excited way. At Athens it was very common on the Acropolis, and was 
evidently breeding in holes in the rocks and ruins. In the Parnassus we 
often heard its curious note cuc-koo-vah!-ee, cuc-koo-vah'-ee, and were told 
that it remained there all the year. It feeds on small birds, mice, grass- 
hoppers, cockchafers, moths, beetles, &c., which it catches both on the 
wing and on the ground. It may be seen perched on a tree, a rock, or on 
the roof of a house. It is a somewhat early breeder ; and fresh eggs may 
be obtained from the middle of April to the middle of May. The situa- 
tion of the nest, which is a mere scratch round of whatever rubbish may 
be accidentally collected on the spot, is varied. Sometimes it is in a hollow 
tree, sometimes in a cleft of a rock, sometimes in the roof of a house; and 
I have seen it under the roots of a tree. The number of eggs varies from 
four to six; they are pure white in colour, oval in form, and measure from 
1-4 to 1°35 inch in length, and from 1:15 to 1:08 inch in breadth. 
The Little Owl has the upper parts greyish brown, striped on the head 
and spotted on the back and wings, and barred on the tail with white. 
The underparts are white, broadly streaked with brown. Inrides and bill 
yellow, claws black. The female is a slightly larger and paler bird than 
the male. Young birds are somewhat more dingy and less grey in colour. 
The Pygmy Owl, N. passerina, has been recorded as a British bird, but 
on unsatisfactory evidence. It is a much smaller bird (wing only 4 inches 
instead of 6 inches), with a more rounded wing (first primary not much 
more than half the length of the second). 
