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Its flight is both rapid and strong, with closed wings, like 
that of the Besrah. It kills and devours all kinds of small 
birds, even taking them in the day-time. I had one caught 
which came down at a chicken three times all by itself, and’ 
killed it in broad daylight. The chicken was set in a trap 
for Limnaetus Niveus.”’ 
Dr. Jerdon describes the soft parts differently to what I 
should; the feet are yellow, bristled to the toes, the bill 
light yellowish horny and the irides, bright yellow. He is 
wrong in saying, ‘beneath, throat white, the rest of the 
body &e.’*; in good fresh specimens, the lores and chin are 
white, the ends of the bristle-like elongated shafts, blackish. 
From the base of the lower mandible, joining into the white 
of the chin, runs a broad white stripe under the ear coverts 
and round the lower half of the posterior margin of the aural 
orifice, this latter portion of the stripe, not being visible 
in the dry skin, unless the ear coverts are lifted, but being very 
conspicuous in the living bird, who, especially when teased, 
sets the ear coverts out, nearly at right angles to the bill. 
Between these white stripes, and below them, joining the feathers 
of the neck, the throat feathers are closely barred rufous or 
rufescent white and dusky brown, precisely unicolorous with 
the sides of the neck ; below this there is a large white patch at 
the base of the neck in front. Most of my skins show all this, 
but in some, in which owing to the size of the head, the skin, 
and feathers of the throat have been injured in turning, it is 
not so apparent, but it is invariably found in fresh specimens, 
and in living birds of which I have kept several. 
These birds in confinement tame readily, and eat raw or 
cooked meat, insects, frogs, in fact any thing, animal. I have 
seen them in the day-time, in the shady verandah in which 
they were kept, kill and eat crickets, ants and butterflies. 
A pair of sparrows made a nest on the interior cornice of the 
enclosed end of the verandah, in which they lived. At first, 
the sparrows, teased, and bothered the Owls, the whole day long 
at intervals, the Owls merely retreating inside their box, chat- 
tering angrily, but one night two of the three got loose, killed 
both sparrows, eating their breasts and entrails, and all the 
young ones, of which not a trace was left. They did not 
attempt to leave the place, (this was at Dehra) and I let the 
third loose, after which they gradually grew wilder, (returning, 
however, for some weeks for the day to their box,) and at last 
left the house altogether, although, when I gave it up they were 
still hanging about the trees in the very jungly compound. 
They were excessively noisy birds, both by night and even at 
