204 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



can abound to the degree that Athene brama does 

 in Indian gardens. Almost every tree, such as an 

 old mango, banyan, or Poinciana regia, containing 

 convenient caverns passing inwards from points 

 where branches have fallen and fungi have softened 

 and excavated the tissues, is inhabited by them and 

 is often the site of a regular colony. It is in retreats 

 of this kind that they usually prefer to spend the 

 daylit hours, but they may sometimes be found 

 established among the beams of an open-roofed 

 verandah, though they certainly are not so fond 

 of such a site as barn-owls are. As a rule, they 

 spend the whole day in their fastnesses ; but they 

 are by no means so purely nocturnal in activity as 

 most other owls are, and may often be seen flying 

 about in the full blaze of tropical sunshine, apparently 

 quite at their ease and undazzled by the glare. 

 One bird for a time chose to spend his days in the 

 crown of a common date-palm at the side of my 

 garden ; and I have seen a pair of them flying about 

 and quarrelling fiergely over a glaring highroad near 

 Delhi, in the full blaze of the early afternoon of an 

 April day, and when the hot wind was raging like 

 the blast from an oven. When they do venture out 

 in full daylight they are, like other owls, very liable 

 to the attack of miscellaneous mobs of small birds ; 

 but, owing to the relative strength of their diurnal 

 vision, they are not nearly such helpless victims 

 as most of their relatives are in like circumstances. 



