150 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XV. To THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, July 8, 1773. 



SOME young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of 

 Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of 

 which they caught, and among the rest, some very minute yet 

 well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found 

 to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the 

 south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery : 

 this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. 



We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls 

 that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have 

 paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during 

 their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through,* the 

 following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable : About an 

 hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally 

 forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows 

 and small enclosures for them, which seem to be their only food. 

 In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see 

 them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop down 

 in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch 

 for an hour together, and have found that they return to their 

 nest, the one or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; 

 reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal 

 is possessed of as far as regards the well being of itself and off- 

 spring. But a piece of address, which they show when they re- 

 turn loaded, should not, I think, be passed over in silence. As 

 they take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in their 

 claws to their nest : but, as the feet are necessary in their ascent 

 under the tiles, they constantly perch first on the roof of the 

 chancel, and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, that 

 the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as 

 they are rising under the eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot 

 at all : all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from 

 the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a 



* And not unfrequently the winter also, the breeding period of these birds much resembling 

 that of the domestic pigeon. Indeed, few birds evince so great an aptitude for domestication as 

 the white owl, and none are more eminently serviceable to man as destroyers of mice, and even 

 rats, while they are perfectly harmless towards poultry. ED. 



