WHITE OWL AT HOME 5 



The white owl is so called because, though the 

 whole of his upper plumage is of a delicate buff or 

 yellow speckled with grey, as his Latin name, Strix 

 flammea implies, it is the pure white of the lower 

 plumage which most strikes the eye, as he sails 

 noiselessly over a stubble field or along a hedge. 

 He is known also as the barn and the screech owl 

 the barn owl from one of his favourite haunts ; 

 the screech owl because of his rasping, piercing 

 shriek, so unlike to the deep, mellow, musical hoot 

 of his nearest relations. As he is the best known, so 

 he is the best worth knowing, and the most useful 

 of all his tribe. When left unmolested, as he ought 

 to be, he becomes almost domestic in his habits, 

 cruising around the rickyard or the homestead in 

 search of his prey, and often taking temporary 

 refuge, should the morning light surprise him, in 

 any tumble-down shed which is near at hand. The 

 resort which he most frequents is a dark 

 cobwebbed barn in which corn, or newly or badly 

 threshed straw, is stored : for thither troop rats by 

 scores and mice by hundreds, and there, ready for 

 the farmer's greatest foe, is the farmer's truest 

 friend, eager to destroy the destroyers. There he 

 stands, bolt upright, perched on one leg, perfectly 

 motionless, in some dark niche or on some lofty 



