178 WHITE OWLS. 



attention to the manner of life of these birds 

 during their season of breeding, which lasts the 

 summer through, the following remarks may not 

 perhaps be unacceptable. About an hour before 

 sunset, (for then the mice begin to run) they 

 sally forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round 

 the hedges of meadows and small enclosures, for 

 them which seem to be their only food. In this 

 irregular country we can stand on an eminence 

 and see them beat the fields over like a setting- 

 dog, and often drop down in the grass or corn. 

 I have minuted these birds with my watch for an 

 hour together, and have found that they return 

 to their nest, the one or the other of them, about 

 once in five minutes ; reflecting at the same time 

 on the adroitness that every animal is possessed 

 of as far as regards the well-being of itself and 

 offspring. But a piece of address, which they 

 show when they return loaded, should not, I 

 think, be passed over in silence. As they take 

 their prey with their claws, so they carry it in 

 their claws to their nest; but, as the feet are 

 necessary in their ascent under the tiles, they 

 constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel, 

 and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, 

 that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the 

 plate on the wall as they are rising under the 

 eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not posi- 

 tive) to hoot at all 1 ; all that clamorous hooting 

 appears to me to come from the wood kinds. The 

 white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tre- 

 mendous manner ; and these menaces will answer 

 the intention of intimidating, for I have known a 



* White owls do hoot ; I have shot them in the act. They 

 also hiss and scream ; but at night, when not alarmed, hoot- 

 ing is the general cry. W. J. 



