32 THE TAWNY OWL 



Brown Owls make very amusing pets and they are 

 not hard to tame. They are less suspicious than 

 other owls and become very companionable. R. Bos- 

 worth Smith, whose recent death was so much lamented 

 by all bird-lovers, and who said: " Birds have been 

 to me the solace, the recreation and the passion of 

 a life-time," told of one young brown owl which he 

 brought up from the nest, which was very fond of music. 

 It would make its way, through an open window on the 

 ground floor, into the room in which a piano was being 

 played and would even press closely against the case of 

 the instrument. Dr. J. Cooper, Professor of Greek 

 Language and Literature at Rutger's College, New 

 Brunswick, also told the same author that one morning 

 in November of 1899 he found, on going to his lecture 

 room, that a brown owl had somehow made its way into 

 it, and had selected as a perch a huge framed photograph 

 of Athens. It was, he remarks, an unlocked for illustra- 

 tion to both teacher and taught, of the proverbial 

 expression " Owls to Athens." And there she was, just 

 over the Areopagus, the High Court of Athens, and she 

 sat perched there four whole hours, that "bird of 

 wisdom," whilst the Professor gave as many lectures to 

 successive classes of his pupils, quite undisturbed by the 

 noise they made, coming and going. Before she dis- 

 appeared, one of the lecturer's brother-Professors had 

 time to take a photograph of " the Bird of Pallas on her 

 chosen throne." 



Description : In the adult male the upper parts are of 

 variable shades of ash-grey, mottled with brown ; there 

 are large white spots on the outer webs of the wing- 

 caverts ; the tail is barred with brown and tipped with 

 white; the under-parts are a huffish-white, mottled with 



