180 STRIGID.E. 



has given, in bis usual entertaining style, an account of the 

 proceeding, started from Rome with a dozen of young Little 

 Owls in a cage, five of which surviving the vicissitudes of 

 the journey, he released from their confinement at Walton, 

 near Wakefield, in the May of the following j^ear. There is 

 reason to believe that others have tried the like experiment 

 without making public the fact ; and it is certain that a con- 

 siderable number of living birds of this species are annually 

 received in London usually from Holland. Examples both 

 alive and dead are frequently exposed for sale in the markets 

 of Germany, Italy and France. 



Throughout most parts of Europe the Little Owl is a well- 

 known resident. It is abundant in France, Belgium and 

 Holland, and thence northward to Denmark ; but it has 

 never been observed in Norway and has only once strayed to 

 Sweden. In North Germany, according to Dr. Borggreve, 

 it is far more common in the west than in the east. 

 Herr Radde states that he obtained a specimen in Eastern 

 Siberia, whence perhaps we may infer that the range of this 

 bird extends across the Russian dominions ; but its limits 

 cannot at present be traced with any great precision, since 

 to the east and south there occurs a very nearly allied, if 

 indeed distinct, species, distinguished by several names (of 

 which more presently) and many ornithologists, not recog- 

 nizing the asserted difierences between the two forms, leave 

 that to which their observations refer a matter of doubt. 

 However, examples of the Little Owl from Odessa, Sevas- 

 topol, Constantinople and Smyrna, seem to be admittedly 

 identical with those from central and western Europe. In 

 Greece, Italy and Spain the same is the case, and the bird 

 is common, though the allied form may also occur in one or 

 more of those countries and their islands, as it certainly 

 does on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. More 

 than this cannot now be said. 



The present species was the emblematic bird of ancient 

 Athens, and the attributed favourite of the Goddess of 

 Wisdom, as the characteristic figures on sculptures and 

 coins abundantly prove. It ought, therefore, to have been 



