ITS CHARACTER MALIGNED. 93 



were not old enough. No one else could have taken them, 

 for the church could not be entered without the key, which 

 he always kept. Had rats carried them off? The clerk 

 said there were none. Had there been any, he must have 

 heard or seen them on one or other of his many visits to 

 the church, or at least have found signs of their presence. 

 But this was never the case. He stated, however, that a 

 pair of barn owls lived in the same spire, and he thought 

 that they were the culprits, taking the young ones, as he 

 said, as soon as they were fat enough, to save themselves 

 the trouble of hunting out of doors. Be this as it may, 

 we feel bound to say, on behalf of the owls, they were 

 never caught in the fact, and that the parent stock-doves 

 were not deterred from laying again and again, and at 

 length rearing a brood. Charles Waterton, whose name 

 will be familiar to all naturalists, argues strongly against 

 the notion of the barn owl robbing dove-cotes. He 

 says* : — " When farmers complain that the barn owl 

 destroys the eggs of their pigeons, they lay the saddle on 

 the wrong horse. They ought to put it on the rat. 



" Formerly, I could get very few young pigeons till the 

 rats were excluded effectually from the dove-cot. Since 

 that took place, it has produced a great abundance every 

 year, though the barn owls frequent it, and are encouraged 

 all around it. The barn owl merely resorts to it for 

 repose and concealment. If it were really an enemy to 



: ' L " Essays on Natural History," 1st Series, p. 14. 



