UTILITY OF OWLS 75 



With regard to the mischief done by owls, all the harm 

 they do is amply repaid by their utility in destroying a much 

 more serious nuisance in the shape not only of the different 

 kinds of mice> but of rats also, these animals being their principal 

 food and the prey which they are most adapted for catching. 



I knew an instance where the owls having been nearly 

 destroyed by the numerous pole-traps placed about the fields 

 for the destruction of them and the hawks, the rats and mice 

 increased to such an extent on the disappearance of these their 

 worst enemies, and committed such havoc among the nursery- 

 gardens, farm-buildings, etc., that the proprietor was obliged 

 to have all the pole -traps taken down, and the owls having 

 been allowed to increase again, the rats and mice as quickly 

 diminished in number. When the long-eared owls have young, 

 they are not particular as to what they prey Upon, and I have 

 found the remains of many different kinds of game about their 

 nests. 



The wings of the owl are peculiarly adapted for seizing 

 their sharp-eared prey with silence : were it otherwise, from 

 not having the rapidity of the hawk and other birds of prey, 

 the owl would have little chance of catching the active little 

 mouse. As it is, he comes silently and surely near the ground, 

 and dropping down on the unfortunate mouse, surrounds it 

 with his wings, and grasping it in his sharp and powerful claws 

 soon puts an end to the little animal. The wings are fringed 

 with a downy texture, which makes his flight quite inaudible 

 on the calmest night. The numbers of mice destroyed by a 

 breeding pair of owls must be enormous, and the service they 

 perform by so doing very great to the farmer, the planter, and 

 the gardener. Though neither ^ats nor owls ever eat the little 

 shrew-mouse,^ they always strike and kill it when opportunity 

 offers, leaving the animal on the spot. What there is so 

 obnoxious to all animals of prey in this little creature it is 

 impossible to say. Besides the shrew we have the common 



Elgin Cathedral. But they are comparatively rare. It is on the whole very useful in 

 destroying so many mice. — C. St. J. 



Mr. C. Innes, who edited St. John's Natural History and Sport in Moray, 1863, adds 

 as a note to that book (p. 298), on the barn-owl : "This is one of the few birds I have 

 known transplanted and breed and thrive in its new country. A pair of white owls were 

 brought from England by a school-boy more than twenty years ago to the banks of the 

 Nairn, where their descendants are now in good numbers. Their first independent settle- 

 ment was in the tower of Kilravock. " 



I Sorex <trt^neus and S. fodiens, water-shrew, Moray. — C, St. J. 



