OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 69 



the belated peasant, all these characteristics are familiar to every 

 countryman. Round no bird has a greater wealth of legend and 

 mystery and interest collected than round the White Owl ; and 

 this interest began away down the centuries hundreds of years 

 before old Gilbert White stood, watch in hand, " upon an 

 eminence, and minuted these birds for an hour together," though 

 that was a hundred and twenty years ago. " About once in five 

 minutes," he says, " the one or the other of them returned to their 



nest." 



It is interesting to notice that the Barn Owl has, like the 

 osprey, a reversible hind toe, and this would seem to point to 

 some different condition of existence, perhaps to the comparative 

 scarcity of mice, and the superabundance of fish in some bygone 

 epoch. Nowadays the Tawny is the more frequent fisher, 

 though the Barn Owl, too, fishes in the streams and brooks at 

 times. 



THE LONG-EARED OWL. This bird nests earlier even than the 

 Tawny, laying its eggs by the middle of March. Though accounted 

 a rare bird, it is commoner throughout this country than is usually 

 supposed. It does not nest in hollow trees, but in the deserted 

 nest of a kestrel, or in a squirrel's drey. No better situation can 

 be chosen for observing the habits of the Long-Eared Owl than 

 the fir plantations which dot the sides of the chalk hills of Surrey 

 and Berkshire. In these clumps they nest. Later on in the year it 

 is not unusual to find a single clump harbouring a considerable 

 number of these birds, several families having drawn together. 

 By looking up carefully into the trees it is always possible to see 

 the owls, their bodies drawn up tight against the fir-trunk, till 

 they look like bits of old wood. This owl, at nesting time, utters 



