THE BAKN OWL. 165 



hidden to its heart's content, and also a more abundant 

 supply of food, than in places which are either more open or 

 better kept in order. " The screech owl shall lodge there," 

 is no bad expression for the desolation and neglect of a place 

 once carefully attended to ; as, before it takes up its abode, 

 the place must not only be in ruins, but vegetation must 

 have made so much progress as to half veil the ruins from the 

 day ; and afford cover to those murine quadrupeds on which 

 the screech owl preys. 



Accordingly, it is the screech owl which, above all others, 

 superstition has converted into a bird of horror and of evil 

 omen. Its hooting, which is accompanied by a remarkable 

 inflation of the throat, is deep and dismal, though solemn and 

 impressive ; and when the attributes of place and time are 

 taken into the account, the effect which it produces upon the 

 untutored mind is hardly to be wondered at. 



BARN OWL, OB WHITE OWL (Strix flammea). 



This is the most common, the most familiar, the most 

 useful, and in its plumage perhaps the most beautiful of all 

 the British owls. Instead of spurning the society of man, it 

 courts the neighbourhood of his dwelling ; and while it is 

 more destructive of mice, in all their species, barn, field, and 

 bank, than any of the other owls, it stands not accused of 

 destroying any sort of game, even in the young state, though 

 it sometimes does pursue small birds. It does not skin its 

 mice, but breaks the bones, and returns these and other in- 

 digestible parts in pellets or castings, the quantity of which, 

 in a hollow tree or other cavity, which has for some time 

 been the abode of owls, is very considerable. 



The barn owl, though it has not the destructive habits of 

 the tawny owl, and though the fact of its hooting like that 

 and the snowy owl rests on the single testimony of Sir Wm. 

 Jardine, yet merits the encouragement and protection of 



