THE BARN OWL, 157 



tected and encouraged everywhere. But these creatures 

 are not its only food. Standing on an eminence in an 

 irregular country, we may observe them beating the 

 fields over like a setting-dog, and often dropping down 

 in the grass or corn ; lanes, hedge-rows, orchards, and 

 small enclosures near out-buildings, are also visited. 

 Young rats, shrews, small birds, and insects, become its 

 prey ; and a gentleman in Yorkshire having noticed the 

 scales of fishes in the nest of a pair of owls which had 

 built near a lake, on his premises, watched their mo- 

 tions one moonlight night, when he saw one of them 

 plunge into the water, and seize a perch, which it bore 

 to its nest. 



In this practice it resembles the common brown owl. 

 The gold and silver fish had been missed, several years 

 aga, from the flower-garden at Bulstrode, and the then 

 Duchess of Portland, suspecting poachers had been 

 there, ordered the gardener to employ men to watch. 

 On this being done, the robbers were observed to alight 

 on the side of the pond, and there waiting the approach 

 of the fish, capture and devour them : but the delin- 

 quents were barn owls. 



Another case is mentioned of later date. Some years 

 since, several young owls were taken from the nest, and 

 placed in a yew-tree in the Rectory-garden at Allesley, 



