THE TAWNY OR IVY OWL. 399 



It is thus, as remarked by Mr. Colquhoun, " less formed for 

 beating a large extent of country for mice, and must often 

 content itself with promiscuous feeding." Elsewhere he 

 remarks : " They (the white owls) are evidently more expert 

 mousers than the brown, which may in part account for the 

 latter's destruction among young game. I recollect nearly 

 all the young pigeons in my father's dovecot being devoured 

 by a pair of brown owls." This character, coming from a 

 writer who is evidently prepossessed in favour of owls, and 

 who accuses a keeper of shooting a colony of brown owls as 

 a blind for laziness, is certainly somewhat condemnatory of 

 them, and probably most game preservers will think them- 

 selves justified in ordering their destruction, though there is 

 no doubt that, as in the case of the white owl, they are 

 excellent friends to the farmer from destroying mice and 

 rats. The tawny owl is common in all wooded districts 

 where game is not very strictly preserved, and inhabits thick 

 woods, especially where there are evergreens. Its note is a 

 loud and melancholy hoot, seldom heard during the day. 

 The length of the male is fifteen inches, the female being a 

 trifle longer. The former has the beak of a pale-brown 

 colour ; iris dark blue ; face greyish white, edged with a line 

 of dark brown; upper parts ash grey, mottled with a rich 

 brown in two shades, and having a line of white spots on 

 the edge of the scapulars, wing-coverts and primaries barred 

 with white and brown ; tail barred with brown of two- 

 shades ; under parts of body greyish white, mottled and 

 streaked with brown; under tail-coverts white; legs and 

 toes clothed with short, pale grey hairs; claws pale brown 

 colour, tipped with brown. The females are of a deeper 

 tawny colour; the young males resemble the females till 

 their second moult. These birds build in the ivy covering 

 any old ruin, or in the hole of a tree similarly clothed, or if 

 these are not to be found they take possession of an old 

 magpie's nest, which suits them from being covered in. The 

 eggs, to the number of three or four, are white, one inch ten 

 lines in length by one inch and a half. They are hatched in 

 April or early in May, and the young birds are a long time 

 before they can fly, perching on the boughs near the nest, 

 where they are fed by both their parents. 



