Striges 115 



largest and commonest species. It is varied with 

 brown and grey, with bars on the tail and white marks 

 on the wings, while the lower parts are whitish with 

 brown streaks. It always prefers woods, where towards 

 evening its well-known hoot, " too-whit, too-whoo," 

 resounds through the air ; it lays four or more big 

 shining white eggs in a hole in a rotten tree, in the 

 deserted nest of some large bird, or in a burrow, and 

 exceptionally in unused buildings. It is nocturnal, or 

 rather dusk-loving, and remains with us all the year, 

 breeding even earlier in spring than the Long-eared Owl. 

 Curiously its occurrence has not been authenticated in 

 Ireland, nor do the treeless Shetlands or Orkneys suit 

 its habits. It breeds in most of the Palsearctic region, 

 but east of Persia and Palestine we find different 

 species of the genus. 



The Little Owl (Carine noctua), well known to the 

 Greeks as the emblem of the goddess Athene, is now 

 abundant from Northamptonshire to Cambridgeshire 

 and Essex, and occurs elsewhere. It was first intro- 

 duced from the Continent in 1843 by Waterton, but 

 his attempt to acclimatize it was a failure. Mr Meade- 

 Waldo made a further trial with greater success, and 

 Lord Lilford in 1888 completely succeeded near Oundle. 

 Formerly the bird was a rare visitor, now it is spreading 

 almost too rapidly, especially where pollard trees are 

 plentiful, in which it usually lays its comparatively small 

 eggs, four or more in number. But it also takes pos- 

 session of holes in chalk pits and quarries. It is a diurnal 

 bird to some extent, but its noisy cry is chiefly heard in 

 the evening, and in this country its repeated grotesque 

 actions are little in evidence. Its foreign range only 

 extends from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, if we 



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