CHAPTER SEVEN OWLS ^ RATS 



answers to the call of the children. He hoots as vigorous- 

 ly at midday as at night, and will take a bird from my hand 

 when offered to him. Although his flight has been impeded 

 by his wing being cut, he seems to have entirely cleared 

 the garden ofmice, with which itwasmuchoverrun. Though 

 a light bird, and not apparently very strongly built, his 

 sharp claws and bill enable him to tear to pieces any crow 

 or sea-gull that is offered to him. When he has had his 

 meal off some large bird of this kind, and has satisfied his 

 appetite,he carries away and carefully hides the remainder, 

 returning to it when again hungry. I do not know whether 

 the owl, when at liberty in his native woods, has the same 

 fox-like propensity to hide what he cannot eat. I have fre- 

 quently heard this kind of owl hoot and utter another 

 sharp kind of cry during the daytime in the shadysolitudes 

 of the pine- woods. 



The white or barn-owl is rare here, and very seldom 

 seen. I believe him to have been almost eradicated by 

 traps and keepers.* 



With regard to the mischief done by owls, all the harm 

 they do is amply repaid by their utility in destroying a 

 much more serious nuisance in the shape not only of the 

 different kinds ofmice, but of rats also, these animals be- 

 ing their principal food and the prey which they are most 

 adapted for catching. 



* In editing St John's Natural History and Sport in Moray {\%(>l), Cosmo Innes in- 

 serted the following note: — "This is one of the few birds I have known transplanted to 

 breed and thrive in its new country. A pair of white owls were brought from England by 

 a schoolboy more than twenty years ago to the banks of the Nairn, where their descend- 

 ants are now in good numbers. Their first independent settlement was in the tower of 

 Kilravock.'' — Ed. 



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