398 THE OWLS 



midday during hot summer weather statements to the contrary not- 

 withstanding it is by choice a nocturnal bird : and these excursions 

 during the day are the exceptions, not the rule. As twilight falls it 

 emerges from its hiding-place to search the hedgerows, lanes, orchards, 

 and enclosures near outbuildings, quartering the ground like a dog, in 

 search of field-mice, rats, and shrews, though insects, occasionally 

 sparrows roosting in ivy, bats, and even fish are taken. It has been 

 stated, again and again, that shrews are not eaten, but we have the 

 testimony to the contrary of observers like Montagu, Macgillivray, 

 Gilbert White, and Waterton ; while the matter can be settled at first 

 hand by any who will take the trouble to examine a number of pellets 

 taken from the sleeping-quarters of one of these birds ; for, like other 

 owls, the Accipitres and many species not generally credited with the 

 habit, they eject, in the form of pellets, the indigestible portions of 

 their food, such as skin and bones. The late Dr. Bowdler Sharpe has 

 left on record some interesting notes on the barn-owl. He had 

 frequent opportunities of studying this bird at Avingtori Park, Hamp- 

 shire, the seat of Sir Edward Shelley. " I have seen," he remarks, 1 

 " two and three of these pretty birds flying about in the early evening, 

 over the bracken, and playing with each other in the air. Their 

 movements were full of grace and activity as they sailed over the 

 ferns and gambolled with each other in the most playful manner. 

 The number of mice which a barn-owl catches in a single night is 

 truly astonishing. Waterton says that the birds will bring a mouse to 

 their nest every twelve or fifteen minutes, and a nest in Avington 

 Park was found by us to have over forty freshly killed field-mice, 

 which must have been caught during the preceding night." Seebohm 

 gives an instance of twenty rats found in a similar situation. 



This matter of the part played by the barn-owl in keeping down 

 rats and mice is one which, even to-day, is not properly appreciated. 

 For years past this bird has been wantonly and brutally slain in the 

 supposed interests of game-preserving. But for this the recent serious 



1 " British Birds," Lloyd's Natural History, vol. ii. p. 110. 



