74 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



His long ears and bright eyes give him a most unbirdlike 

 appearance as he sits watching one. As soon as evening 

 comes on, the owl issues forth in full life and activity, and in 

 the woods here may be seen and heard in all directions, sitting 

 on the topmost branch of some leafless tree, generally a larch 

 or ash (these two being his favourites), where he hoots incessantly 

 for an hour together, swelling his throat out, and making the 

 eccentric motions of a pouter pigeon. They breed in rocks, 

 ivy, or in the deserted nest of a magpie. 



I do not know why, but I never could succeed in rearing 

 one of these birds — they have invariably died, without any 

 apparent cause, before their first year was over. Not so with 

 the tawny owl.^ One of these birds has been in my kitchen- 

 garden for three years. Though his wing is sometimes cut, he 

 can fly sufficiently to get over the wall, but seldom ventures 

 beyond the adjoining flower-garden or orchard. From habit 

 or tameness this bird .seems to pay little regard to sunshine or 

 shade, sitting during the daytime as indifferently in the most 

 open and exposed places as in the more shaded corners : he is 

 quite tame too, and answers to the call of the children. He 

 hoots as vigorously at mid-day as at night, and will take a bird 

 from my hand when offered to him. Although his flight . has 

 been impeded by his wing being cut, he seems to have entirely 

 cleared the garden of mice, with which it was much overrun. 

 Though a light bird, and not apparently very strongly built, 

 his sharp claws and bill enable him to tear to pieces any crow 

 or sea-gull that is offered to him. When he has had his meal 

 off" some large bird of this kind, and has satisfied his appetite, 

 he carries away and carefully hides the remainder, returning to 

 it when again hungry. I do not know whether the owl, when 

 at liberty in his native woods, has the same fox-like propensity 

 to hide what he cannot eat. I have frequently heard this kind 

 of owl hoot and utter another sharp kind of cry during the 

 daytime in the shady solitudes of the pine-woods. 



The white or barn-owl^ is rare here, and very seldom seen. I 

 believe him to have been almost eradicated by traps and keepers. 



^ The tawny owl is common enough, building in old crows' nests, in clefts of rocks, old 

 ruins, etc., sometimes in rabbit-holes, in which latter situation I have found the eggs. 

 — C. St. j. 



^ This owl lives almost wholly on mice. It is not common at all in this part of the 

 country, though I have ;e€h them about th^ rQcHs of the Findhofn and elsewhere, and gn 



