STRIX FLAMMEA. 169 



cleaned out, there was a deposit of above a bushel of pellets." 

 Now, as the remains of eight or ten mice have been found in its 

 stomach at one time in various stages of digestion — the bones, 

 enveloped in the hair, being (as usual with all owls) ejected in 

 pellets after the bird has retired to rest — the number of mice 

 killed and swallowed entire must have been enormous, for it is 

 surprising the quantity that can be squeezed into a sac two 

 inches in diameter. He proves that it also preys upon fish, for 

 he says : " On a fine evening in July, long before it was dark, 

 as I was standing on the bridge minuting the owl by my watch 

 as she brought mice to her nest, on a sudden she dropped into 

 the water. Thinking she had fallen down in epilepsy, I was 

 going to fetch the boat, but before I got to the end of the bridge 

 the owl rose out of the water with a fish in her claws, and took 

 it to the nest." He also says that owls have two broods in the 

 year — at least, the barn and the short-eared owls, as he watched 

 them on his estate. Mr Blyth, in the Field Naturalists' Magazine, 

 also states another interesting fact, which proves that owls do 

 not lay in regular daily succession like most other birds, for he 

 says : "A nest of barn owls contained two eggs, and when these 

 were hatched, two more were laid, which latter were probably 

 hatched by the warmth of the young birds. A third laying took 

 place after the latter were hatched, and the nest at last contained 

 six young owls of three different ages, which were all reared." 

 This shows that although the barn owl breeds like the rest of the 

 tribe early, it seems in some cases to prolong incubation longer 

 than other birds — all which I hail with pleasure, as bearing out 

 my own observations that, while Nature moves in eternal 

 order, there is no stereotyped rule in anything — not even in 

 the tides and seasons — much less in the variations as shown in 

 the making of birds' nests, food, or incubation. But as regards 

 the unwise interference with her universal laws, I was glad to 

 read in the Parliamentary News to-day (April 27th, 1892), 

 regarding " the plague of field mice in Scotland," that 



"Mr Charming asked the President of the Board of Agriculture 

 whether his attention had been drawn to the increasing discontent among 

 agriculturists in the south of Scotland as to the ' mice plague,' and to the 

 urgent danger to sheep stock, owing to the serious deterioration of hill 

 pasture, whether he should consider the resolutions passed at a meeting at 

 Moffat on Saturday, 16th April, regretting the refusal of the Board of 

 Agriculture to take action in the matter, and calling for a ' more exhaustive 

 and systematic inquiry ;' or will introduce or support a Bill temporarily 

 prohibiting the further destruction of birds of prey and vermin, which have 

 usually been found to keep mice down ? 



"The President of the Board of Agriculture — Yes, my attention has 

 been called again to the ravages of the mice plague in certain Counties in 



