AND THE BENEFITS IT CONFERS ON MAN.} 277 



large, it only knew the advantage of passing its nights at home ; for 

 here 



" No birds that haunt my valley free 



To slaughter I condemn ; 

 Taught by the Power that pities me, 

 I learn to pity them." 



In a manuscript book of observations, written down as they were 

 made, Waterton has several notes on the owls of his park : 



BARN OWL. The white owls at Walton Hall had a second brood 

 in the year 1823. On the first of December in that year, there was 

 a half-fledged young one in the nest which is in the old ruin on the 

 island. 



WHITE OWL. In the month of November 1828, the white owls in 

 the tower on the island of Walton Hall had a second brood of young 

 ones. 



On the 26th of June 1834, the barn owl was mousing in the mea- 

 dow betwixt seven and nine in the morning, and bringing the mice 

 to her nest in the old ivy tower. Whilst on wing, looking for mice, 

 it repeatedly hovered in the air like the windhover hawk. 



On the $oth of June 1834, the barn owl was mousing in the mea- 

 dow till half-past ten in the morning, although the sun was shining 

 in a cloudless sky. 



Nearly the whole of the same day, a bat was hawking for flies 

 under the oak trees which border the lake. 



WHITE, OR BARN OWL. I had a fine brood of them this yeat 

 (1831), in the old ivy tower, at the usual time, viz., July; and on 

 the 7th of September 1831, another pair of barn owls hatched their 

 young in the hollow sycamore tree. 



May 24, 1862. This morning, with John Ogden, the gamekeeper, 

 I examined the inside of the large old oak stump on the hill, near 

 the white hunting gate at the water side. In it I found a jackdaw's 

 nest containing five eggs, a barn owl's nest with young ones, and 

 several dead mice and a half-grown rat, and also a red start's nest 

 with six eggs in it. 



