OF SELBORNE. 149 



and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of 

 these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that 

 they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a 

 nimble and watchful quarry*. 



While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to men- 

 tion what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. 

 As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had 

 been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the 

 bottom a mass of matter that at first he could not account 

 for. After some examination, be found it was a congeries of 

 the bones of mice (and perhaps of birds and bats) that had 

 been heaping together for ages, being cast up in pellets out 

 of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast 

 up the bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the 

 manner of hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were 

 bushels of this kind of substance. 



When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an 

 hen's egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full 

 year without any water. Perhaps the case may be the same 

 with all birds of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their 

 legs behind them as a balance to their large heavy heads : for 

 as most nocturnal birds have large eyes and ears they must 

 have large heads to contain them. Large eyes I presume are 

 necessary to collect every ray of light, and large concave ears 

 to command the smallest degree of sound or noise f. 



I am, <fec. 



* [The exquisite arrangement of the barbules of the wing-feathers of 

 the owls renders their under surface so soft as completely to deaden the 

 sound which, from the absence of such structure in the wings of other 

 birds, is produced by the percussion in the act of flight. Had Paley been 

 acquainted with this beautiful structure, he might with even greater 

 propriety have said that " every feather is a mechanical wonder." The 

 full description of this structure we owe to Mr. John Quekett (Trans. 

 Micr. Soc. ii. p. 25). T. B.] 



t [It is remarkable that Gilbert White appears not to have been aware 

 of the occurrence in the neighbourhood of Selborne of any other species 

 of owls than the two common ones, the white, or barn, and the brown 

 owl. Two species of eared owl, Asio otus and Asio accipitrinus, have, 

 however, repeatedly been taken or shot within or very near to this parish. 



