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BARN-OWL 



Of the eleven species in the British list, only four are resident and 

 1. tli.MiJi the little-owl, which has been introduced in some 

 during recent years, has become plentiful in certain counties. 

 Our resident species, happily, embrace representatives of both of the 

 two families into which the Striges are divided. Of these two families 

 one is represented by the barn-owl alone, the other containing all the 

 remaining special. The reasons for these divisions will be given 

 later on in the course of this work. Suffice it to comment on two of 

 its more striking characteristics. In the first place, the facial disc is 

 extremely well denned, and, unlike that of other owls, is daring sleep 

 curiously contracted, the segment of the disc beneath the eye being 

 drawn upwards. It is also conspicuously long-legged, and the claw of 

 the middle toe is serrated, as in the nightjar and many other quite 

 unrelated groups. This is a. character which, BO far, has defied inter- 

 pretation, and, it is to be noted, is not present in nestling!. 



That the barn-owl is cosmopolitan is easily understood, since it 

 shows a greater adaptability as to haunts and breeding-places than 

 ;m\ other owl. Thus it finds comfortable accommodation alike in 

 church towers and belfries, farm and other outbuildings, dovecots, 

 hollow trees, and clefts in walls and cliffs ; it seems indeed, unlike 

 other owls, to display a preference for human habitations, and to 

 establish itself wherever man has founded a settlement, and this pro- 

 bably because man, in his wanderings, is always closely followed by 

 the ubiquitous mouse and rat, which form the staple food of the barn- 

 owl. It is the only one of our native owls which displays such friend- 

 liness to man and preference for human habitations hence the name 

 barn-owl and this in spite of the fact that this trustfulness is so 

 commonly misunderstood, bringing death as a consequence. 



Though it will occasionally venture forth to hunt by day, even at 



