106 NESTING OF THE BARN OWL 



oriole has been recorded also as visiting the Shetland 

 and Orkney Isles, and that half-way house Fair Isle. 



XXV 



A pigeon cote is fixed on a south wall close to the 

 back-door of my house, about nine feet above 



NGsting 1 of 



tue Barn the ground. The pigeons have all dis- 

 appeared save one dissatisfied, I suppose, 

 with the rigorous war rationing that stopped their 

 supply of Indian corn. The cote is of the usual form, 

 in two storeys, each with two openings. Last year 

 1917 the lower storey was appropriated by a pair of 

 starlings, which reared their brood therein, and returned 

 this year for a like purpose. The upper storey, how- 

 ever, has been occupied this year by lodgers of greater 

 importance. A pair of barn owls (Strix flammed) have 

 reared therein a family of four fine youngsters, and 

 flatter us by their confidence in allowing my grand- 

 children to handle the fledglings and bring them into 

 the house, at the risk, it must be owned, of occasional 

 sharp nips by the owlets. The owls, the starlings, and 

 the solitary pigeon form an interesting and, so far, 

 harmonious little community. 



The flower-garden round the house is much infested 

 by field-mice and voles, which doubtless would prove a 

 far more serious affliction but for the vigilance of this 

 beneficent family of owls. Nor are these barn owls our 

 only police; for the adjacent wood resounds nightly 

 with the hooting of brown owls (Syrnium aluco), which 

 must have their nest not far off'. 



Unluckily those useful slug and insect hunters, the 



