BARN-OWL 



of plague spread by rats would never have occurred. The 

 engines of destruction have been the gun and the pole iiap, the latter 

 a means unworthy of a " sportsman." But, lest we be accused of senti- 

 mentality, let us cite the opinion of others, mltow authority to qpinlr 

 cannot be questioned Thus, then, Mr. R B. Lodge ! quotes the fol- 

 lowing passage from the late Mr. Cordeaux, a well-known ornithologist 

 of his time, whose work still lives: "The owls (shorteared-owls) have 

 been exterminated by the keepers with their deadly pole-traps a 

 cruel form of bird murder which no humane person would tolerate or 

 adopt . . . The useful barn-owl, too, has been ruthlessly destroyed 

 whenever opportunities offered in this same cruel fashion. Noise- 

 lessly across the waste in tike twilight . . . comes the soft-winged owl, 

 and seeing, as if placed ready for his use, a post of vantage from which 

 he may mark each stealthy movement of the mischievous field- vole, 

 stays bit flight to settle on the treacherous perch; and then, during 

 all the long night, and too often, we fear, through the succeeding day 

 with splintered bone protruding through smashed flesh and torn 

 tendon, hangs suspended in supreme agony, gibbeted head downwards 

 till death puts an end to his sufferings. Well may we ask, Can all the 

 game-preserving in the world justify this ignorant and needless 

 Similarly, Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, 2 for so many years on the 

 l' of the Field, wrote: "The utility of the owl (barn-owl) is illus- 

 trated by [the late] Lord Lilford with a very amusing anecdote. He 

 states that when he was a schoolboy he had a half-grown barn-owl 

 that he regaled on one occasion with as many mice as it would 

 swallow. Eight disappeared in quick succession down the capacious 

 gullet of the owl, the ninth followed all but the tail, which for some 

 time hung out of the bird ; but the quick digestion of these liaptore* is 

 well illustrated by the fact that in three hours the owl was ready for a 

 second meal, and took four additional mice. 



" If this is the performance of a single bird, the effect that the 

 fer<lin: of nest- of six or xrvni \ouii;: would have on the immbeix of 



1 Picturr* of Bird Lift, p. 140. ' /-VM. 1800, WO. 



