THE BARN OWL. 53 



retire to Lis 2^1'ivato cell and Avill spend the day perched on 

 end, dozing and digesting as long as the snnlight is too 

 powerful for his large and sensitive eyes. Peep in on 

 him in his privacy, and he will stretch out or move from 

 side to side his grotesque head, ruffling his feathers, and 

 hissing as though your performance were worthy of all 

 condemnation. Yet he is a very handsome and most 

 amusing bird, more worthy of being domesticated as a pet 

 than many others held in high repute. Taken young from 

 the nest, he is soon on familiar terms with his owner, 

 recognises him by a flapping of wings and a hiss whenever 

 he approaches, clearing his j^remises of mice, and showing 

 no signs of pining at the restriction placed on his liberty. 

 Give him a bird, and he will soon show that, though con- 

 tented with mice, he quite appreciates more refined fare. 

 Grasping the body with his talons, he deliberately plucks 

 off all the large feathers with his beak, tears off the head, and 

 swallows it at one gulp, and then j^roceeds to devour the 

 rest piecemeal. In a wild state his food consists mainly of 

 mice, which he sw^allows whole, beetles, and sometimes 

 fish, which he catches by pouncing on them in the water. 



The service which the Earn OavI renders to the agricul- 

 turist, by its consumption of rats and mice, must be ex- 

 ceediugiy great, yet it is little appreciated. " When it has 

 young," says Mr. Waterton, "it will bring a mouse to the 

 nest every twelve or fifteen minutes. Eut in order to 

 have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice 

 which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets 

 which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. 

 Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. 

 In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the 

 Owl on the old gateway was cleared out, there has been a 

 deposit of above a bushel of pellets." 



The plumage of the Earn Owl is remarkable for its soft- 

 ness, its delicacy of pencilling on the upper parts and its 

 snowy whiteness below. Its face is perfectly heart-shaped 



