* 
OWLS AND THEIR LONGEVITY. 
OXLEY GRABHAM, M.A., M.B.O.U., 
Hon. Secretary to Vertebrate Section of Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, 
As a Tawny, Brown or Wood Owl (Syraium aluco) has just com- 
pleted his sixteenth year of captivity in my possession, and was 
not a young bird when I first got him, a few words on Owls in 
general and their longevity i in particular may not be out of place. 
I have kept at various times five different species of Owl: the 
Barn, White, or Church Owl (Strix flammea L.); the Long-eared 
or Horned Owl (Asvo otus L.); the Short-eared or Woodcock Owl 
tel accipitrinus Pall.) ; the Tawny, Brown, or Wood Owl (Syrntum 
aluco L..); and the Little Owl (Ashene noctua Scop.). ‘The firs 
four species breed yearly with us. 
The Barn Owl, I have never succeeded in keeping longer than 
three or four years; it makes the most grotesque faces, and throws 
itself into extraordinary attitudes; it lives almost entirely on mice, 
and in many places in the South of England is encouraged by the 
farmers to come into their barns. I had two young ones, just able 
to fly and fend for themselves, sent to me last year by a friend who 
had found them in his pigeon cote, and had turned both old and 
young out because, I am sorry to say, they had killed and eaten a 
good many young pigeons. ‘They will not often do this, as I have 
known them rear brood after brood in similar situations without ever 
interfering with the pigeons. The birds sent to me I let go. They 
took up their abode for a week or two in a large ivy-covered poplar, 
and TI used to see them flying about every night. Then they made 
off to a large wood close at hand, where, I trust, they will d l 
secure. I have found their eggs in church towers, barns, quarries, 
and hollow trees, and the nest often contains both fresh eggs and 
nearly fully-fledged birds. When wounded they will throw themselves 
on their backs and bite and claw with great energy. There is the 
story told of a certain Yorkshire farmer, who, having shot a Barn 
Owl at dusk one evening, and it having fallen into the churchyard, 
sent one of his lads to pick it up. The boy came back in a great 
fright, and blurted out, ‘ Eh, master, thou’llt cop it. Thou’s gone and 
shotten a cherubim.’ I never saw an Owl trained to fly at quarry like 
a Hawk but once, and that was when an undergraduate at Cambridge. 
A certain man named Callaby, who used to keep dogs, birds, rats, 
foxes, et hoc genus omne, and had his kennels close to the river bank, 
had several Barn Owls, and one or two of them would fly from his 
Wrist, either at mice that were let out into the rat-pit, or at those 
tne, 
May 18oy. I 
