402 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



various kinds. It is a most useful bird, destroying large numbers 

 of rats and mice, which are its principal food, and seldom, if ever, 

 molesting poultry, even domestic pigeons often nesting in its com- 

 pany without fear of molestation. Of this there is plenty of evi- 

 dence on record, as for example the following, by Mr. E. T. Shep- 

 herd, of Monroe, Ohio, published in the Ornithologist and Ob'logist 

 for October, 1884, p. 124. 



"The Barn Owl is undoubtedly a very useful bird to the farmer, 

 having as it has, an almost unlimited penchant for rats and mice. 

 Two or three pairs of these birds would in the course of a year 

 destroy many hundreds of these pests that infest our barns and 

 grain sheds. I quote the following from Mr. Dury's article on the 

 Barn Owl in the Cincinnati Natural History Journal : 'On going 

 up into the tower of the 'town hall' of the village of Glendale,' 

 (where several of these owls were secured the past year,) 'I was 

 astonished at the sight presented. The floor and ledges were 

 covered with the cast-up pellets of the birds. There were hundreds 

 of these pellets, and they must have contained the debris of several 

 thousand rats and mice.' This is certainly evidence of the economic 

 value of these .birds. Mr. Dury also states that he found them 

 living in harmony with the several pairs of tame pigeons which had 

 their quarters in the tower." 



