32 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
doubt, by ignorant farmers and gamekeepers who 
know nothing of its ways and doings, but all who 
have troubled themselves to ascertain the true nature 
of its work in the world agree in regarding it as the 
consistent friend of man, with scarcely a blemish in 
its character. 
The Barn-owl. 
Prévost-Paradol, from whose researches into the 
diet of birds I shall have frequent occasion to quote 
in the course of the following pages, states that, in 
barn-owls dissected by himself during every month 
of the year, the contents of the stomach consisted of 
mice, field-mice, and shrews, the latter being in a 
considerable minority. 
