62 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



even waking them, but occasionally have been 

 detected, when the Owls (for there were often more 

 than one) have made no attempt at flight, but merely 

 attenuating themselves to their narrowest dimensions, 

 swayed their bodies slowly to and fro, with many 

 loud snaps of drowsy defiance. 



Many years ago I was staying at the rectory at 

 Tichmarsh ; a pair of Barn Owls had a nest full of 

 young in the celebrated cedar in the rectory garden, 

 and one fine evening the old birds came bringing 

 food to their young seventeen times in half an hour 

 by the clock; there was a rickyard within thirty 

 yards of the nest, and this was the Owl's special 

 hunting-ground, as I repeatedly observed : mice were 

 comparatively scarce, probably because rats swarmed, 

 and the pellets found under the nest were in this 

 instance composed almost entirely of the remains of 

 the latter vermin. In other cases, besides the above- 

 mentioned animals, I have found many skulls of 

 Sparrows and Finches, which I presume are caught 

 in the ricks, one or two of Bats, and fragments of 

 various fishes. I have often been told by game- 

 keepers that they often saw Barn Owls hovering 

 about their pheasant-coops, but have always answered 

 that if the young pheasants are outside their coops at 

 the time the Owl is flying, the keeper is to blame, 

 and that the Owl's visit is for mice or rats, and not 

 for game ; indeed I do not recollect one authentic 

 case of poaching to have been proved against the 

 Barn Owl hereabouts. I do not know that in 

 Northamptonshire, or at all events in this neighbour- 

 hood, the superstitions formerly so prevalent with 

 regard to Owls in general, and this species in parti- 

 cular, ever had much hold on the people, but, to my 



