WHITE OWL. 159 



attracting the fish within their reach, but I must place this 

 fancy in the same category with another which I have alluded 

 to under the head of the Snowy Owl. Not to mention that 

 other birds, such as the Osprey and Fishing-Eagle, which 

 take fish in the same manner, by pouncing on them, find 

 them ready to their claw without the need of any attractive 

 influence, and that Owls see as well at the time they fly, 

 as the Osprey at the time that it does, and that fish, as 

 every fly-fisher knows, keep the same general positions by 

 night that they do by day, it may be remarked, as those 

 who have engaged in 'Barbel-blazing' in the Biver Wharfe 

 well know, that though certain fish may sometimes be 

 attracted more or less by light, as the salmon, yet they are 

 not necessarily so, for that the light oftentimes seems to 

 keep them pertinaceously at the bottom of the stream. 

 Besides, how is the instantaneous catching of the fish by the 

 Owl to be effected? They are caught from the middle of 

 the pool. Is the Owl to keep hovering over them after the 

 manner of the Kestrel, until they have time to ascend from 

 the depth and answer to the wooing of his eyes, inviting 

 them in the language of Mrs. Bond to her ducks, '0! will 

 you, will you, wont you, wont you, come and be killed?' 

 'You may call spirits from the vasty deep,' says Shakespeare, 

 'but will they come when you do call them?' and I am 

 inclined to think that the fishes will be found in their deep, 

 at least as deaf to such an invitation. 



The White Owl is said to collect and hoard up food in 

 its place of resort, as a provision against a day of scarcity. 

 It seizes its prey in its claw, and conveys it therein, for the 

 most part, when it has young to feed; one, however, has 

 been seen to transfer it from its claw to its bill while on 

 the wing; but, as Bishop Stanley observes, 'it is evident that 

 as long as the mouse is retained by the claw, the old bird 

 cannot avail itself of its feet in its ascent under the tiles, 

 or approach to their holes; consequently, before it attempts 

 this, it perches on the nearest part of the roof, and there 

 removing the mouse from its claw to its bill, continues its 

 flight to the nest. Some idea may be formed of the number 

 of mice destroyed by a pair of Barn Owls, when it is known 

 that in the short space of twenty minutes two old birds 

 carried food to their young twelve times; thus destroying at 

 least forty mice every hour during the time they continued 

 hunting; and as young Owls remain long in the nest, many 



