44 FISH OWLS. 



A crossbill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year 

 in this neighbourhood. 



Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the 

 end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's-head, 

 or miller's thumb, (gobius fluviatilis capitatusj the 

 trout, (trutta fluviatilis,) the eel (anguilla,)* the lam- 

 pern, (lamp&tra parva et fluviatilis ,J and the stickle- 

 back, (pisciculus aculeatus.) 



We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as 

 many from a great river, and therefore see but little 

 of sea birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams 

 of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed ; 

 and multitudes of widgeons and teals, in hard 

 weather, frequent our lakes in the forest. 



Having some acquaintance with a tame brown 

 owl, I find that it casts up the fur of mice, and the 

 feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner of 

 hawks : when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot 

 eat. 



The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, 



and a few roots, mixed with coarse white moss, or lichen, and 

 lined with horse-hair and a little fine dried grass. The eggs 

 were five in number, about the size of a skylark's, but shorter 

 and rounder, and spotted with bluish ash and olive brown, 

 some of the spots inclining to dusky or blackish brown. The 

 markings were variously distributed on the different eggs." 

 J. C. LOUDON, Jour, of Nat. Hist. W. J. 



* Mr. Yarrel of London, a most accurate and observant 

 naturalist, in a late number of the Zoological Journal, hints at 

 the possibility of two species of eels being natives of this country. 

 In this I certainly think Mr. Yarrel will be correct, their simi- 

 larity rendering them easily confused. The species with which 

 the London markets are supplied from Holland, may also be dis- 

 covered, as our researches in the ichthyology of Great Britain, 

 so long comparatively .neglected, become more frequent. The 

 grig of Pennant, which seems to be Mr. Yarrel's second species, 

 appears in the Thames, at Oxford, at a different season from the 

 common eel. W. J. 



