70 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



the prey is small, it is bolted whole; if large, pieces 

 are torn off it and swallowed. My Owl was fed mainly 

 on the carcases of birds, the skins of which went to 

 enrich the collections of the Sarawak Museum, and I 

 watched the way in which the food was devoured 

 many scores of times. If the food offered to the Owl 

 was the carcase of some small Passerine, it would be 

 held in the grasp of one foot while the Owl, bending 

 its head down, would peck at the food in a tentative 

 way ; then all of a sudden the carcase would be seized 

 in the beak, and the Owl, throwing its head up, would 

 jerk the food well back into the gape of the mandibles. 

 The pointed tip of the shell-pink tongue could now be 

 seen pushing out from under the carcase, and finally, 

 as the food was shaken further and further back into 

 the gape, the whole arrow-head part of the tongue would 

 appear projecting beyond the carcase. As soon as this 

 point in the proceedings was reached, the tip of the 

 arrow-head would be depressed and the barbs would 

 correspondingly rise, then with a powerful muscular 

 contraction of the tongue-stalk the whole tongue 

 would be withdrawn, carrying with it the mass of 

 food, against which the elevated arrow-barbs strongly 

 pressed. In fact, a tongue of this type is nothing 

 but an apparatus for hauling bulky masses of food 

 from the mouth down the throat. I expect it will be 

 found that this type of tongue is almost universal 

 amongst raptorial birds. 



The end of my pet was a sad one. I had occasion 

 to be absent from Kuching for over a month, and 

 during this time the Owl was fed on lumps of meat 

 and bullock's liver. On my return the diet' of small 

 birds' carcases was resumed, but with fatal results, for 



