244 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



as I sat upon the beach, within a few minutes of 

 midnight. 



Stormy and Forked-tailed Petrels sleep on the 

 sea when not engaged in breeding operations ; but 

 whether they take their rest by day or night, it is 

 impossible to say. It would appear, however, from 

 their habits during the nesting season, that they 

 are diurnal sleepers, for they are never to be seen 

 on land during the daytime. I have spent days 

 together on and near ground occupied by colonies, 

 but never yet saw a member of either species, 

 excepting when it was taken by force from its nest- 

 ing burrow. They come forth at night and feed 

 their young during the hours of darkness. 



At St. Kilda the breeding-holes of the Forked- 

 tailed species are mixed up with those of thousands 

 upon thousands of Puffins ; and how a bird, in the 

 dark, can distinguish its own burrow amongst such 

 a bewildering crowd of others exactly like it, so 

 far as human discernment can make out, is to me 

 a mystery. 



Owls sleep by day in thick holly bushes, in 

 hollow trees, holes in rocks, amongst ivy growing 

 round trees, in old ruins, and amongst deep heather 

 and furze. The Barn Owl figuring in our illus- 

 tration was photographed by means of a magnesium 

 flashlight in an old barn in Essex. 



These birds are popularly supposed to come 

 forth only at night time, but such is by no means 

 the case. When a Barn Owl has a family of 

 young ones to feed she may often be seen on a 

 dull afternoon assiduously quartering a hedgerow 

 in search of prey long before dark. A year or 

 two ago, whilst staying with some friends near 

 Leatherhead, I was standing under an apple tree 

 in an old orchard about five o'clock one cloudy 



