Robbers of the Air 



would retrieve it. The wanderings of all the harriers in 

 our country in search of leverets, young rabbits, voles, 

 and other small animals lead to their undoing at the 

 hands of gamekeepers, and even if this were not the 

 case the professional egg-collector would accomplish the 

 same undesirable end. 



Owls are more numerous than is generally supposed. 

 Their nocturnal habits, silent flight, and the fact that 

 many of them live in the most sequestered parts of the 

 country, all contribute to the erroneous belief that they 

 are much rarer than is actually the case. On the whole 

 they render man a great service by the destruction of 

 rats, voles and mice, but when their furred food becomes 

 scarce some of them readily take to the destruction of 

 birds, large and small. 



The brown, wood, or tawny owl is more or less 

 common all over the country wherever old timber and 

 ancient ruins are to be found, and its loud and oft- 

 repeated Tu whit too whoo call notes are familiar to 

 nearly every dweller in the country. It is said to live 

 upon rats, mice, voles and frogs, but my own experience 

 is that it destroys far more birds than rodents. 



Some years ago I found a family of young brown 

 owls in the hayloft of a sequestered barn high up 

 amongst the Westmorland fells, and was somewhat 

 horrified to discover lying round the fierce-demeanoured 

 downlings a headless lapwing taken off her nest a few 

 hundred yards away, a young rabbit, a ring ouzel, and 

 an adult barn swallow. The last-named bird must have 

 been captured a mile away, for none were breeding in 



