WHITE, OR BARN OWL. 135 
They feed on young rats, mice, shrews, small birds, insects, 
&e. parts of all of which have been recognized at different 
times on examination of the rejected pellets, which are 
generally to be found in abundance near any favourite 
place of their resort. That the Barn Owl will sometimes 
capture fish is proved by a note in the Compendium of the 
Ornithology of Great Britain by the late Mr. John Atkin- 
son of Leeds, which states that a gentleman residing in 
Yorkshire, and well acquainted with ornithology, having 
observed the scales of fishes in the nest of a pair, which 
had built near a lake on his premises, he was induced one 
moonlight night to watch their motions, when he was 
agreeably surprised to see one of them plunge into the 
water, and seize a perch, which it bore to its nest, whence 
the gentleman took it. This note, it appears, was supplied 
by Mr. Waterton of Walton Hall, in whom the Barn Owl 
has found a most able and philanthropic advocate.* 
It is said of this Owl, that when satisfied it will hide the 
remainder of its meat, like a dog. 
The Barn Owl lays from three to five eggs, which are 
oval and white, measuring one inch six lines in length, and 
one inch three lines in breadth. Young birds have been 
found in July, they have also been found in September, 
and Mr. Waterton, in his paper already referred to, men- 
‘tions having found young Owls in the nest so late in the 
year as December. A short notice by Mr. Blyth in the 
Field Naturalist’s Magazine, vol. i. page 187, serves to ex- 
plain the circumstance of the occurrence of young Owls 
over a space of time so unusually leng. ‘A nest of the 
Barn Owl last summer in this neighbourhood (Tooting) 
contained two eggs, and when these were hatched two 
more were laid, which latter were probably hatched by the 
* Magazine of Natural History, vol. v. p. 9. 
