56 STRIGIMl. 



habits, and dusky colour, it is not so often seen as heard. 

 It has many a time been my amusement to repair, towards 

 the close of a summer evening, to a wood which I knew 

 to be the resort of these birds, and to challenge them to 

 an exchange of greetings, and I rarely failed to succeed. 

 Their note may be imitated so exactly as to deceive even 

 the birds themselves, by forming a hollow with the fingers 

 and palms of the two hands, leaving an opening only 

 between the second joints of the two thumbs, and then by 

 blowing with considerable force down upon the opening 

 thus made, so as to produce the sound hoo-hoo-hoo-o-o-o. 

 I have thus induced a bird to follow me for some distance, 

 echoing my defiance or greeting, or whatever he may have 

 deemed it ; but I do not recollect that I ever caught sight 

 of the bird. 



The Tawny Owl does not prey exclusively on mice 

 and small birds, but makes great havoc among game, and 

 even visits fish-ponds. Young hares, rabbits, rats, mice, 

 moles, and any birds that he can surprise asleep, form his 

 principal food. These he hunts by night, and retires for 

 concealment by day to some thick tree or shrubbery, either 

 in the hill country or the plains. The nest, composed 

 principally of the dried pellets of undigested bones and 

 fur, which all the Owls are in the habit of disgorging, is 

 usually placed in a hollow tree ; here the female lays 

 about four eggs, from which emerge, in due time, as many 

 grotesque bodies enveloped in a soft plush of grey yarn ; 

 destined, in due time, to become Tawny Owls. The full- 

 grown females are larger than the males, and, being of a 

 redder tinge, were formerly considered a distinct species. 



