114 NOTES TO THE 



strong buttresses of bone are thrown (about every inch or so) 

 across the cavity of the horn in such a manner as to give it 

 the greatest possible support and strength. I have cut a cow's 

 horn and skull into several sections to show these buttresses 

 of bone, and now that the preparation is finished I have 

 another specimen to show that there is design and beauty in all 

 created objects. 



SPOTTED FLYCATCHER, p. 138. The spotted flycatcher takes all 

 his food upon the wing. He leaves the branch with a dart, and 

 returns to the same spot. Its brother, the black and white fly- 

 catcher, frequents bogs in woods, and places where gnats abound. 

 The latter bird is easily kept in confinement, becomes tame in 

 a few days, and feeds upon eggs and bread and a little scraped 

 beef, and an occasional meal-worm. As a rule he lives round the 

 margins of woods and groves of trees. He is rarely found in the 

 interior of a wood. 



Mr. Bartlett informs me that a spotted flycatcher that built 

 in the climbing stalk of a passion flower outside his house in 

 the Zoological Gardens used to throw up little shining pill-like 

 bodies that looked like blue glass. It appears from this that 

 flycatchers disgorge the horn-like and shining bodies of blow- 

 flies and other insects in pellets, just as an owl disgorges the 

 pellets containing the bones and skins of the mice and rats. In 

 the case of house-martins, bats, &c., the hard skins of the in- 

 sects are not disgorged as pellets, but pass through the digestive 

 organs. 



WHITE ORBARN OWL, p. 140. This bird is sometimes caught in 

 gins 011 the tops of posts set for jays in -woods. The young ones are 

 taken from holes of trees and barns ; both the young and old tame 

 very soon ; they are easily raised upon sheep's " fat-gut," with 

 mouse or bird now and then. They eat moles in dry weather. The 

 old birds throw their pellets outside the nest.the young ones throw 

 them up inside. As a rule they return to the same breeding- 

 place every year. Mr. Davy has had three lots of young owls 

 from one pair of old ones out of the same nest in one season. 

 They breed up to the end of October. Young ones are found in 

 May. The boys in Hainault Forest used to collect owls eggs for 

 Mr. Davy, as the eggs were of more value than young birds. 

 The old owl kept on laying till she was found dead in the 

 nest with a very small egg, having laid from twelve to fourteen 

 eggs in succession in the space of three weeks. There are from 

 three to five young in a nest, r,nd sometimes there is as much as 

 a week's difference in the age of the young ones, some being in 

 the " white down " and others nearly in " full feather." They fly 



