RITES OF HOSPITALITY. 95 



eminently typical of the genus, is the most gene- 

 rally distributed, although by no means so common 

 as in some other counties. Our farmers have at 

 last discovered that the occasional disappearance 

 of poultry from the yard, or of pigeons from the 

 dovecot, is not to be laid to its charge, and that 

 even the vaunted services of the cat in purging 

 the barn and the haggard of rats and mice, fall 

 far short of those performed by its powerful ally, 

 this useful and really valuable bird. 



Some of these owls have lately found a sanc- 

 tuary in the yews and ivy of the churchyard at 

 Petworth ; and their hard breathing, late in the 

 evening, has more than once arrested the atten- 

 tion of the passers by, who fancied that some 

 jovial neighbour had been "brought to," and was 

 reclining in an adjacent gutter, under the somni- 

 ferous influence of the potations dispensed at the 

 beer-shop, having there taken advantage of the le- 

 gal indulgence " to be drunk on the premises." 



I have the satisfaction of exercising the rites of 

 hospitality towards a pair of barn owls, which have 

 for some time taken up their quarters in one of 

 the attic roofs of the ancient, ivy-covered house in 

 which I reside. I delight in listening to the pro- 

 longed snoring of the young when I ascend the 

 old oak stairs to the neighbourhood of their nur- 

 sery, and in hearing the shriek of the parent birds 



