Robbers of the Air 



always locate the nests of two or three sparrow-hawks 

 and those of a merlin or two, but during the season of 

 1922 I failed to find a trace of either species, although 

 I was out every day in their old breeding haunts for a 

 complete month. Their place appears to have been 

 taken by the brown owl, which I found living in little 

 limestone caves far away from bush or tree high up in 

 the Pennine Range. Their diet appeared to be largely 

 young rabbits, and I am sorry to say in one case I found 

 unmistakable evidence of the birds having killed a hen 

 grouse. 



Individual brown owls are sometimes met with that 

 are very bold in the defence of their young ones, and 

 instances are upon record of too inquisitive human in- 

 truders being badly mauled whilst trying to cultivate an 

 over-close acquaintance with the angry bird's family of 

 downlings. 



The barn, or screech owl, is perhaps the most useful 

 bird that flies round a farmstead, and the number of 

 young rats and mice it destroys for the sustenance of a 

 lusty family snoring deep down in some hollow old tree- 

 trunk is wellnigh incredible. I have watched a pair of 

 these birds catch and carry eight mice to their young 

 ones in the space of an hour. In every case the un- 

 fortunate little quadruped was caught in the bird's 

 claws and transferred in mid-air to the bill before enter- 

 ing the nesting-hole. On several occasions I have been 

 quite close to a barn owl when it has pounced upon a 

 mouse and have never heard a sound of the bird's 

 approach. I am persuaded that the sharp-eared little 



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