274 THE BARN OWL, 



closed, apparently fast asleep. Buffon and Bewick err (no doubt 

 unintentionally) when they say that the barn owl snores during its 

 repose. What they took for snoring was the cry of the young birds 

 for food. I had fully satisfied myself on this score some years ago. 

 However, in December 1823, I was much astonished to hear this 

 same snoring kind of noise, which had been so common in the 

 month of July. On ascending the ruin, I found a brood of young 

 owls in the apartment. 



Upon this ruin is placed a perch, about a foot from the hole at 

 which the owls enter. Sometimes at mid-day, when the weather is 

 gloomy, you may see an owl upon it, apparently enjoying the refresh- 

 ing diurnal breeze. This year (1831) a pair of barn owls hatched 

 their young, on the yth of September, in a sycamore tree near the 

 old ruined gateway. 



If this useful bird caught its food by day,* instead of hunting for 

 it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility 

 in thinning the country of mice ; and it would be protected and 

 encouraged everywhere. It would be with us what the ibis was 

 with the Egyptians. When it has young, it will bring a mouse to 

 the nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes. But in order to 

 have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird 

 destroys, we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stom- 

 ach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four 

 to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that 

 the apartment of the owl on the old gateway was cleaned out, there 

 has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets. The barn owl 

 sometimes carries off rats. One evening I was sitting under a shed, 

 and killed a very large rat as it was coming out of a hole, about ten 

 yards from where I was watching it. I did not go to take it up, 

 hoping to get another shot. As it lay there, a barn owl pounced 

 upon it and flew away with it. This bird has been known to catch 

 fish. Some years ago, on a fine evening in the month of July, long 

 before it was dark, as I was standing on the middle of the bridge, 

 and minuting the owl by my watch, as she brought mice into her 

 nest, all on a sudden she dropped perpendicularly into the water. 



* Though the barn owl usually hunts during the night, still I have repeatedly 

 seen it catching mice in the daytime, even when the sun shone bright. C, W. 



