OF SELBORNE. 177 



know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, 

 and was much pleased with the discovery ; this I look upon 

 as a great stroke in natural history. 1 



We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of 

 white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this 

 church. As I have paid good attention to the manner of 

 life of these birds during their season of breeding, which 

 lasts the summer through, the following remarks may not 

 perhaps be unacceptable : About an hour before sunset 

 (for then the mice begin to run) they sally forth in quest of 

 prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small 

 enclosures for them, which seem to be their only food. 

 In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and 

 see them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often 

 drop down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these 

 birds with my watch for an hour together, and have found 

 that they return to their nest, the one or the other of them, 

 about once in five minutes ; reflecting at the same time on 

 the adroitness that every animal is possessed of as far as 

 regards the well-being of itself and offspring. But a piece 

 of address, which they show when they return loaded, 

 should not, I think, be passed over in silence. As they 

 take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in their 

 claws to their nest ; but, as the feet are necessary in their 

 ascent under the tiles, they constantly perch first on the 

 roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse from their claws to 

 their bill, that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the 

 plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to 

 hoot at all; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to 

 come from the wood kinds. 2 The white owl does indeed 



1 The teal still breeds in the neighbourhood of Wolmer (see p. 29, 

 note 1), and the writer has repeatedly seen the nest eggs and young of 

 this bird in the western portion of the adjoining county of Sussex. 



ED. 



2 Mr. Colquhoun, the author of" The Moor and the Loch," speaking 

 of the white or barn owl, says : " They do hoot, but very rarelv. 

 I heard one once six times in succession, and then it ceased." Sir 

 William Jardine once shot a white owl in the very act of hooting ; and 



N 



