MONTAGU'S HARRIER. WHITE OR BARN OWL. 21 



more elegant in appearance than the hen harrier, its habits 

 have been described as similar to those of that bird. The 

 eggs, which on one occasion I had the pleasure of seeing, 

 when forwarded to London in a recent state from Cambridge- 

 shire, are rather small in size, and resembled those of the 

 preceding birds in their bluish-white colour. 

 Habitat Southern Europe. 



FAMILY III.STRIGIDyE (OWLS). 



GENUS IX. STRIX (BARN OWL). 



SPECIES 20 THE WHITE OR BARN OWL. 



Strix flammea. Linn. 

 Chouette effraie. Tenim. 



THE BARN OWL is the most common and widely distributed 

 of all our nocturnal raptores, and appears to be equally abun- 

 dant in all parts of the island. Its food in a great measure 

 consists of small birds resting on the ground, rats, insects, and 

 even fish ; but it principally depends for existence on mice, of 

 which it annually destroys a vast number. Were it not for 

 the disproportionate size of the head, and shortness of the tail, 

 the form of this bird might be called elegant. The chasteness 

 of the plumage, and the aerial lightness of its flight, added 

 to its benefits to the farmer, compensate for its defects, and 

 render it one of our most useful and yet most persecuted 

 birds. It has, however, like many others, attained an unen- 

 viable notoriety ; and that from the earliest ages, being figu- 

 ratively employed in Holy Writ as an emblem of desolation, 

 and rendered an unclean bird by the Mosaic Law ; the fable- 

 loving Greeks seized eagerly on the owl ; and, although they 

 have symbolized it as an emblem of wisdom, yet the majority 

 of their writers have instanced it as the most perfect type of 

 wretchedness in existence. 



All the poets have followed in the beaten track laid down 

 by Ovid, and, perhaps, inferring from the Levitical law, and 

 mythological lore, that it was a fair subject for attack, have 

 endeavoured to outdo each other in vituperation. And as for 

 our own degenerate days, no " deed without a name" can be 

 enacted, without the potent assistance of the harmless owl. 

 No witch's charm by any possibility can be efficacious, unless 

 the " obscure bird of night" contributes its influence. 



