COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



occasionally screaming at irregular intervals all 

 through the night, when their time ought to be 

 fully taken up in hunting for prey. 



The brown fish-owl, Ketupa zeylonensis, may now 

 and then be seen or heard in suburban gardens con- 

 taining large ponds, but, unlike the barn-owl, the 

 spotted owlet and the scops, it is not usually 

 a regular resident in them. None of the Indian 

 owls that I have been acquainted with are 

 nearly so attractive in captivity as the European 

 tawny owl often is ; or, as a truly lovable rock- 

 owl, hailing, as far as memory serves me, from 

 Africa, and who was for a time an inmate of the 

 Zoological Garden at Alipur. He was a delightful 

 bird, and used to come squeezing close up to the 

 bars of his cage in order to have his head stroked, 

 and to confide many things to one in a low-toned, 

 gentle flow of conversation. Fish-owls and spotted 

 owlets are usually very savage when first captured, 

 and sulky and uninteresting afterwards; the barn- 

 owls do nothing but drowse solemnly all day long, 

 or hiss and grimace viciously when disturbed ; and 

 scops-owls, although most attractive and decorative 

 in the soft beauty of their plumage, seldom survive 

 captivity long enough to give one a fair chance of 

 becoming really intimate with them. 



