BIRDS. 103 



been forced to abandon. It lays four or five eggs ; and the 

 young are all white at first, but change colour in about a fort- 

 night. The other owls in general build near the place where 

 they chiefly prey ; that which feeds upon birds, in some neigh 

 bouring grove j that which preys chiefly upon mice, near some 

 farmer's yard, where the proprietor of the place takes care 

 to give it perfect security. In fact, whatever mischief one 

 species of owl may do in the woods, the barn owl makes a suffi- 

 cient recompense for, by being equally active in destroying mice 

 nearer home ; so that a single owl is said to be more serviceable 

 than half a dozen cats, in ridding the barn of its domestic ver- 

 min. " In the year 1580," says an old writer, " at Hallontide, an 

 army of mice so over-run the marshes near Southminster, that 

 they eat up the grass to the very roots. But at length a great 

 number of strange painted owls came and devoured all the mice." 

 The like happened again in Essex about sixty years after. 



To conclude our account of these birds, they are all very shy 

 of man, and extremely indocile and difficult to be tamed. The 

 white owl in particular, as Mr Buffon asserts, cannot be made 

 to live in captivity; I suppose he means, if it be taken when 

 old. " They live," says he, " ten or twelve days in the aviary 

 where they are shut up ; but they refuse all kind of nourish 

 ment, and at last die of hunger. By day they remain without 

 moving upon the floor of the aviary ; in the evening they mount 

 on the highest perch, where they continue to make a noise like a 

 man snoring with his mouth open. This seems designed as a 

 call for their old companions without ; and, in fact, I have seen 

 several others come to the call, and perch upon the roof of the 

 aviary, where they made the same kind of hissing, and soon after 

 permitted themselves to be taken in a net."* 



* Mr Constedt, in the Transactions of the Pliilosophical Society of Stock, 

 holm, has recorded a pleasing instance of their attachment to their youngs 

 A young owl having quitted the nest, in the month of July, was caught by 

 his servants, and shut up in a large hen-coop. The next morning a young 

 partridge was found lying dead b»fore the door of the coop. For fourteen 

 successive nights the same circumstance was repeated ; plainly proving 

 that it had been brought there by the old owls as a provision for the young 

 one. Till the month of August, various articles of food, as young par- 

 tridges, moor-fowl, pieces of lamb, and other substances, were regularly 

 brought ; after which time tlio parents discontinued their attendance, and 

 it may be remarked that this is the period when all birds of prey abandou 

 tlicir young to their own exertions. 



