40 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
same; November, common and field-mice ; Decem- 
ber, mice, spiders, and woodlice.” 
This owl also varies its diet with birds, bats, 
rabbits, and occasional chickens, while now and then 
it turns poacher for the nonce, and makes free with 
a partridge or a young pheasant. The above details 
of its ordinary food, however, afford ample proof 
that its influence is decidedly beneficial, and its oc- 
casional depredations in the preserves must be con- 
sidered as a kind of toll, or commission, upon the 
services which it renders to man. We do not grudge 
our debt-collectors their five per cent., and the de- 
mands of the short-eared owl are certainly no more 
exorbitant. 
TueE Tawny or Brown Owl, author of the celebrated 
“hoot ” which is still so commonly accepted as the 
sure presage of approaching woe, is an equally ser- 
viceable being, as may be seen from the following 
statement by Dr. Altam :— 
“Number of pellets examined, 210; remains found: 
rats, 6; mice, 42 ; voles, 206; shrews; 33 ; moles, 48; 
birds, 13; beetles, 48.” 
Like most of its relatives, however, it is a poacher 
at times, and that to no little extent, as may be 
gathered from the statement, for which the /7e/d is 
responsible, that in a single nest were found at one 
time no less than five leverets, four young rabbits, 
three thrushes, and a trout nearly half a pound in 
weight—part of a day’s rations for the three hungry 
young. Magpies and young rooks also occasionally 
