196 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 

 CHAPTEE XXIV. 



DECEMBER. 



Owls ; destruction of Mice by them Frogs Snakes Roebucks Fondness 

 of 15irds for Sunshine Loch of Spynic Habits of Wild Fowl ; rapidity 

 of their flight Retrievers The Otter ; shooting of, by night Eley's 

 Cartridges Wild Swans Accidents in Shooting Variety of Country in 

 Moray Forres ; public Walks of Rabbits Foxes Immigration of 

 Birds Conclusion. 



DURING the clear frosty nights of this month we hear the 

 owls hooting for hours together in the old ash trees around 

 the house. Occasionally they used to be caught in the pole- 

 traps set for hawks, but the poor fellows looked so pitiable 

 as they sat upright, held by the legs, that I took down all 

 these traps, which were set near the house. And the owl is 

 far more a friend than an enemy to man : the mischief he 

 does to game is very trifling ; but the service he is of to the 

 gardener, the farmer, and even to the planter of forest trees, 

 by destroying rats and mice, is incalculable. I have a 

 great liking, too, for the quaint, old-fashioned looking bird, 

 and by no means believe him to be the 



" Ignavus bubo, dirum mortalibus omen." 



My kitchen-garden was overrun with mice, who not only ate 

 up peas and other seeds, but also nibbled and destroyed great 

 numbers of peaches ; but since I have had a tame owl in the 

 garden, the mice have disappeared entirely, having been 

 destroyed by him and his relations and friends who visit him 

 at night. Sometimes an owl, either the common brown one 

 or else one of the long-eared kind, posts himself all day long, 

 bolt upright, in one of the evergreens near the house. The 

 small birds first point out his whereabouts, by their clamour 

 and fluttering round him ; but the owl sits quite unconcerned 

 in the midst of the uproar, blinking his eyes and nodding his 

 head as quietly as if in his accustomed sequestered thicket or 

 hollow tree. 



The long-eared owl, with his bright yellow eyes and hooked 

 bill, has a most imp-like appearance when seen sitting motion- 

 less on the low branch of a tree or ivy-covered wall. 



The chief food of owls are mice and birds, but they are 

 also very fond of frogs. When an owl catches one of these 

 animals, instead of swallowing it whole, as he does a mouse, 

 he tears it to pieces, while still alive, in the most cruel 

 manner, regardless of its shrill cries. 



