146 OWLS 



single bird book that I have got mentions it.' The 

 inquiry is easily answered. The cry, which (assuming 

 that birds can pronounce consonants, which they can't) 

 I should write 'keeweek' rather than 'coo-eek/ is that 

 of the young brown, tawny, or wood owl, Strix stridula 

 of Linnaeus, after it has left the nest and before it has 

 learnt to hoot or to feed itself. It is one of the most 

 familiar night sounds in summer woods, yet it is surprising 

 how few people have traced it to its source; and it is 

 quite true, as my correspondent observes, that very few 

 writers on ornithology have thought it worth mentioning. 

 But Professor Newton is too close an observer to omit 

 notice of it from his admirable Dictionary of Birds 

 (1893-6). Sometimes one may hear the impatient note 

 from several parts of the wood, where hungry owlets are 

 sitting waiting till the parent bird returns from the chase. 

 There is not a little popular confusion on the subject 

 of owls, comparatively few people, even dwellers in the 

 country, being able to distinguish one species from 

 another. Indeed, in the matter of owls, as in every 

 province of exact science, our language is a very uncertain 

 medium of definition. There are ten species of owls resi- 

 dent in or visitors to Great Britain the tawny or brown 

 owl, the barn owl, the long-eared owl, the short-eared owl, 

 Tengmalm's owl, the Scops owl, the little owl, the eagle 

 owl, the hawk owl, and the snowy owl. Take the first 

 name on this list the tawny or brown owl. All owls 

 are brown except the snowy owl, so that name does not 

 help much to recognition, and might easily get transferred 

 to another species, especially as the feathers of the barn 

 owl are far more tawny than those of the bird we have 

 chosen to ticket as the tawny owl Again, the Scops owl, 



