256 BOMBAY DUCKS 



caterwauling and screeching in B flat. Our owlet 

 friends in the roof used to remain comparatively quiet 

 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This was presumably their sleep- 

 ing-time. From the latter hour spasmodic outbursts of 

 screeching would be heard. About five o'clock the birds 

 used to emerge. 



The spotted owlet is the most diurnal of the strigidae. 

 He does not object to daylight in the least. Only 

 yesterday morning, at about half-past seven, I saw one 

 of these birds sitting on the stump of a defunct tree. 

 Cunningham states that he saw a pair of them flying 

 about, and quarrelling fiercely, over a glaring high road 

 near Delhi, in the full blaze of the early afternoon of an 

 April day, and when the hot wind was raging like the 

 blast from an oven. 



Owls are built for night work. They have very large 

 eyes, long ears, and their plumage is so constituted that 

 they can fly absolutely noiselessly. They are birds of 

 prey, and have to hunt in the silence of night, when the 

 hum of insects is still, and the noises of the day are 

 hushed ; hence the necessity of silent flight. Most owls 

 lie low during the day ; not so much because the sun 

 hurts their eyes as on account of the rough handling 

 they receive at the hands of the rest of the feathered 

 folk. Birds are like boys at school, they set upon every 

 strange individual which shows itself. Some owls sleep 

 in trees ; such find it very difficult to elude their pur- 

 suers if they once expose themselves. They have no 

 haven of refuge to which they can flee. Not so with 

 the spotted owlet. It has a lair in the shape of a hole 

 to which it can retire when mobbed. Consequently, it 



