STRIGES. 125 



Order STRIGES. 



THE OWLS. 



The Owls form an important family of birds beautifully 

 adapted for the work they have to discharge in the 

 economy of Nature, which is to keep in check the prolific 

 swarms of lesser rodents, all of them feeders in the dark, 

 most destructive to useful crops, and capable of quickly 

 devastating a country were they to be suffered to multiply 

 without restraint. For this w^ork the Owls are equipped 

 ■with soft plumage, their wide-webbed wing-feathers 

 enabling them to approach their quick-eared prey with 

 noiseless flight ; they have exquisite ears for detecting the 

 least rustle of a mouse in the herbage ; they have power- 

 ful feet and strong talons for delivering the fatal pounce ; 

 and they are supplied with facial disks of feathers 

 radiating from their large eyes, which serve to reflect every 

 ray of light. We have always regarded the Owls as 

 especial favourites, and have regretted every instance in 

 which such beautiful and useful birds have been slaugh- 

 tered. There are only four British Owls which are at all 

 common and generally dispersed ; and of the four, two, 

 the Barn-Owl and Brown or Wood-Owl, are resident 

 throughout the county ; the Long-eared Owl is a winter 

 visitor, sometimes numerous, and only occasionally known 

 to nest in Devonshire ; while the Short-eared Owl is a 

 regular winter visitor from the North, well-known to 

 sportsmen, who flush it commonly in turnip-fields and 

 snipe-bogs in the autumn and winter. Besides these four 

 British species we have, as a very rare chance visitor to 

 the county from the far North, the splendid Snowy Owl; 

 and one other small Owl, very numerous in the South of 

 Europe, the Little Owl, has once or twice occurred at 



