4 The South African Birds of Prey 



flmnmea maculata, Brehm). Until recently this bird was 

 considered by most students of African ornithology as 

 identical with the European bird, but Dr. Eeichenow 

 (" Vogel Afrikas ") has separated it under the above tri- 

 nomial name, and rightly too, so far as I can judge from 

 the series of these birds in the Transvaal Museum. 



This owl is known to the Boers as Dood-vogel (mean- 

 ing Death-bird), and is looked upon as a bird of ill-omen, 

 the popular belief being that if it screeches on a house- 

 top at night one of the inhabitants is sure to die within 

 a reasonably short space of time. This silly superstition, 

 with slight modifications in certain districts, is also 

 applied to the other species of owls, the Spotted Eagle- 

 Owl for example. 



As a matter of fact these two species are amongst the 

 best friends of the farmer, subsisting almost exclusively 

 upon mice, rats, and insects, maybe varied very occasion- 

 ally by a bird. 



With regard to the European Barn Owl {Strix flam- 

 7nea) — a very close ally to our bird, and by many not 

 admitted as distinct — its food supply was very accu- 

 rately worked out by Baron von Schweppenburg, and 

 published in the Journal filr Ornithologie for October, 

 1906. He examined 13,100 pellets of ejecta (the un- 

 digested portions of skin, fur, &c., brought up by the bird) 

 and found that the owl's nourishment consists of 0"20 per 

 cent, moles, 30"20 per cent, shrews, 0'20 per cent, bats, 

 0'20 per cent, rats, 23 per cent, mice, 44-30 per cent, 

 voles, 1'50 per cent, birds, and 0'40 per cent, frogs. We 

 thus see that small rodents form nearly the whole of the 

 owl's diet, viz., 98 per cent. Of this, roughly speaking, 

 68 per cent, are forms harmful to agriculture. This 

 means that, out of every hundred parts of foodstuffs, only 

 thirty-two parts have no bearing upon agriculture. So 

 far as our knowledge of the domestic economy of our 

 bird goes, it does not seem to differ much in its diet and 

 consequently forms one of the best friends the South 

 African farmer possesses. As to the senseless supersti- 

 tions attached to this bird, we need not dwell upon the 



