158 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



keeper's gallows-tree ! Both farmer and gamekeeper have 

 very strong opinions and murderous intentions about this 

 bird. The one believes that it takes his young pigeons, 

 the other that it destroys his pheasant chicks. Now, as the 

 barn-owl seeks its food for the most part when the young 

 pigeons and young pheasants are under the wings of their 

 respective mothers, one does not quite see how this de- 

 struction can go on ; it does, no doubt, occasionally pick 

 up an unprotected bird or two, but its principal food con- 

 sists of rats, mice, voles, frogs, and the like. 



Seebohm says : " My friend, Frank Buckland, once 

 found twenty dead rats in a barn-owl's nest, all fresh 

 killed, and yet the stupid farmer will slay him if he can, 

 under the delusion that he eats his pigeons. Out of 

 between thirty or forty nests examined by Mr. Norgate, 

 only in one instance did he find the remains of a bird. 

 Out of 700 pellets examined by Dr. Altum, remains were 

 found of 19 bats, 2513 mice, I mole, and 22 birds, 19 of 

 which were sparrows. The barn-owl is one of the farmer's 

 best friends." 



The poor owls get scant justice from most country-folks. 

 The barn-owl is the screech-owl, the dread of village boys 

 and old women, who have a most superstitious awe of this 

 bird. Should its screech be heard when watching the 

 sick-bed, it bodes certain death. Spenser, in his " Faerie 

 Queen," says : 



" The messenger of death, the ghastly owl, 

 With drery shriekes." 



And Dray to n : 



" The shrieking stritch owl that doth never cry, 

 But boding death." 



Shakespeare, in "Richard III. :" 



" Out on you, owls ! nothing but songs of death." 



In all countries where this bird is found it has a bad 

 name with the ignorant and superstitious. In France, if 

 a screech-owl shrieks on the chimney of a house where a 

 woman is lying-in, a girl will be born, with ill-luck. 



