174 ADDENDA 
brown coloured and the largest of the three 
(16 inches). (The Long-eared owl is also of a 
dark plumage but is known, when seen close 
especially, by its prominent ears.) A feature 
of owls is that all their parts are so delicately 
feathered, including the legs, that they can 
fly about (which they do in a dull and heavy 
manner) without making the slightest noise, 
the dreadful screeches of the barn owl (blood- 
curdling noises some people call them) being 
presumably to terrify its victims. [once heard 
a brown owl one quiet moonlight night about 
12 o'clock in July, in North Wales, as he sat in 
the dark recesses of anoldoak. The notes were 
most melancholy and weird, but yet attractive 
to the lover of nature at that still hour at the 
dead of night. His mate responded to him 
across the valley half a mile away. The notes 
of the tawny owl, not of a harsh kind, are 
generally spelt ‘tu whit to whoo.’ A Billeri- 
cay friend of mine writes them ‘ Billy Hicks 
too whoo.’ 
I was attracted one afternoon in the sub- 
urbs of London by sounds which I thought 
were the snoring of a drunken tramp lying 
