70 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



OWL, TAWNY. 



THE Tawny Owl is fairly numerous in many parts 

 of the countryj especially where little in the way 

 of game preserving is done. Gamekeepers, are often 

 fulminated against for destroying it, by people who 

 fondly imagine that the bird confines its dietary 

 to field mice and voles. 



An old watcher told me that he was once 

 puzzled to make out what was going off with his 

 young pheasants, as he felt sure he had next to 

 no vermin of any kind on his beat. One dull 

 evening, whilst sitting near his coops, gun athwart 

 his knees and briar in course of being filled, he 

 saw a Tawny Owl sail noiselessly out of an adjoin- 

 ing wood, snatch up one of his young pheasants, 

 and fly off with it. A long shot killed the 

 marauder on the spot, and when the keeper picked 

 her up the young pheasant was still tightly locked 

 in her talons. Luckily the captive had not been 

 struck by a single pellet of the discharge, and 

 when released ran back to its foster mother, ap- 

 parently none the worse for its strange experience. 



I examined a Tawny Owl's nest, if such the 

 filthy cavity amongst some old hay in a barn loft 

 could be called, containing two half-grown young 

 ones, last June, and found half a wild rabbit 

 about a month old, part of an adult Swallow, the 

 hinder half of a down-clad young Peewit, a portion 

 of a full-grown Missel Thrush, and several beetles. 

 The farmer on whose land the barn was situated 

 told me that he had often known the parent Owls 

 bring their chicks nearly full-grown Lapwings. He 

 further added that about the time the young Owls 

 become fledged and take to the woods, their parents 



