OF SELBORNE. 245 



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 follow- 

 ing 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 1 ; reflecting at the 

 same time on the adroitness that every animal is pos- 

 sessed of as far as regards the well-being of itself and 

 offspring. But a piece of address, which they show 

 when they return 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, 

 arid 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. 



J Colonel Montagu has observed, that the wren returns once in two 

 minutes, or upon an average thirty-six times in an hour: and this conti- 

 nued full sixteen hours in a day, which, if equally divided between eight 

 young ones, each would receive seventy-two feeds in the day, the whole 

 amounting to five hundred and seventy-six. See Ornithological Diet, 

 p. 35. To this I will add, that the swallow never fails to return to its 

 nest at the expiration of every second or third minute. MITFORD. 



