THE BARN OWL i 43 



though your performance were worthy of all condemnation. Yet 

 he is a very handsome and most amusing bird, more worthy of being 

 domesticated as a pet than many others held in high repute. Taken 

 young from the nest, he is soon on familiar terms with his owner, 

 recognizes him by a flapping of wings and a hiss whenever he 

 approaches, clearing his premises of mice, and showing no signs of 

 pining at the restriction placed on his liberty. Give him a bird, 

 and he will soon show that, though contented with mice, he quite 

 appreciates more refined fare. Grasping the body with his talons, 

 he deliberately plucks off all the large feathers with his beak, tears 

 off the head, and swallows it at one gulp, and then proceeds to 

 devour the rest piecemeal. In a wild state his food consists mainly 

 of mice, which he swallows whole, beetles, and sometimes fish, 

 which he catches by pouncing on them in the water. 



The service which the Barn Owl renders to the agriculturist, by 

 its consumption of rats and mice, must be exceedingly great, yet 

 it is little appreciated. " When it has young", says Mr. Waterton, 

 " it will bring a mouse to the nest every twelve or fifteen minutes. 

 But in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice 

 which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets which it 

 ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet 

 contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months 

 from the time that the apartment of the Owl on the old gateway 

 was'cleared out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets. " 



The plumage of the Barn Owl is remarkable for its softness, its 

 delicacy of pencilling on the upper parts and its snowy whiteness 

 below. Its face is perfectly heart-shaped during life, but when the 

 animal is dead becomes circular. The female is slightly larger than 

 her mate, and her colours are somewhat darker. The nest of the 

 Barn Owl is a rude structure placed in the bird's daily haunt. The 

 eggs vary in number, and the bird lays them at different periods, 

 each egg after the first being hatched (partially at least) by the 

 heat of the young birds already in being. That this is always 

 the case it would not be safe to assert, but that it is so sometimes 

 there can be no doubt. The young birds are ravenous eaters and 

 proverbially ugly ; when craving food they make a noise re- 

 sembling a snore. The Barn or White Owl is said to be the 

 most generally diffused of all the tribe, being found in almost all 

 latitudes of both hemispheres, and it appears to be everywhere 

 an object of terror to the ignorant. A bird of the night, the 

 time when evil deeds are done, it bespeaks for itself an evil 

 reputation ; making ruins and hollow trees its resort, it becomes 

 associated with the gloomiest legends ; uttering its discordant note 

 during the hours of darkness, it is rarely heard save by the benighted 

 traveller, or by the weary watcher at the bed of the sick and 

 dying ; and who more susceptible of alarming impressions than 

 these ? It is therefore scarcely surprising that the common incident 



