OWLS. 31 



who have lived for twenty years in Bombay without 

 seeing one, but the Screech Owl does not ordinarily 

 put itself much in the way of being seen. A dark ob- 

 ject, like a Flying Fox, passing overhead as you drive 

 home from dinner, and a loud, harsh, husky screech, 

 suggesting sore throat and loss of voice, are all the 

 indications you will commonly have of its presence. 

 But should a pair take up their residence in any 

 deserted building, or old ruin, in your neighbour- 

 hood, then you will know more about them. I often 

 wonder what the Screech Owls did before man was 

 created, for they cannot get on without him now. If 

 he did not build churches with steeples and bel- 

 fries, and forts and castles with towers, and barns 

 with roomy lofts, where would they live? In this 

 Presidency they are under deepest obligations to the 

 Portuguese. Under one of the remaining walls of an 

 ecclesiastical ruin in Bassein Fort Mr. Phipson and I 

 once noticed the ground glittering with small white 

 bones. We gathered a handful of them and brought 

 them home for examination, and could scarcely be- 

 lieve in ourselves or each other when they proved 

 to consist chiefly of the jaw-bones of muskrats ! 

 In a high niche of that old wall a worthy pair of 

 Screech Owls had, for who knows how many years, 

 brought up an annual family of 3, 4, or 6 insatiable 

 owlets on this nutritious food, varied only with 

 an occasional house rat or field mouse. As is 

 well known, owls swallow their prey whole, and 

 after digesting all that is digestible, throw up the 

 bones and hair rolled up into little balls. Why 

 the bones we found were chiefly jaw-bones I cannot 

 tell, unless the parent birds were in the habit of 



