THE BAEN OWL 



219 



owl must have a liberal allowance of small birds, 

 like English sparrows, and, if possible, an occa- 

 sional small mammal, in each case with the feath- 

 ers or hair upon it. Nature has constructed 

 the owl to devour its prey entire, — feathers, 

 hair, bones and all, on the spot where it is 

 captured. 



By a curious rotary action of the stomach, 

 all the desirable elements are extracted and as- 

 similated, and the indigestible refuse — hair, 

 feathers, bones, claws, etc. — is rolled into a 

 ball called a "pellet," which is cast up, and ex- 

 pelled through the mouth. These pellets are 

 sometimes collected at roosting-places, and when 

 carefully examined by expert zoologists, it is 

 possible to identify most of the animal remains, 

 and tell what the bird has fed upon. 



The Barn-Owl, or Monkey-Faced Owl, 1 is 

 the most oddly shaped of all the owls; it has 

 the smoothest and most compact plumage, and 

 proportionately the longest legs. Its general 

 color is that of scorched linen — light brownish- 

 yellow. Each small black eye is the centre of a 

 sunburst of radiating feathers, and the whole 

 face is surrounded by a heart-shaped ring of 

 brown. 



The Barn-Owl is to rats and mice as the 

 cuckoo is to the caterpillar. As a destroyer of 

 the meanest vermin on earth (rats) this bird has 

 no equal. Whether North or South, in the tropics 

 or the temperate zone, it loves to live under the 

 roofs of civilized man, especially in church bel- 

 fries, where it is not molested. In the town of 

 Barrancas, at the head of the Orinoco delta, 

 some Venezuelan boys piloted me into the best 

 church in the place, showed me two Barn-Owls 

 nesting over the altar, and urged me to shoot 

 them then and there. My refusal because the 

 birds were very thoroughly in sanctuary was 

 with difficulty comprehended. 



Many observations on the food habits of this 

 bird have been made by examining the pellets 

 that have been gathered from its roosting place. 

 In June, 1890, Dr. A. K. Fisher collected 200 

 pellets that had accumulated from two birds 

 that roosted and nested in one of the towers of 

 the Smithsonian building. These contained 

 454 skulls, of which 225 were of meadow-mice, 

 2 of pine-mice, 179 of house-mice, 20 were of 



1 Strix pra-tin'co-la. Length, from 15 to 17 

 inches. 



rats, G of jumping mice, 20 shrews, 1 star-nosed 

 mole and 1 vesper-sparrow. 



The Barn-Owl rarely molests birds — probably 

 never does so except when forced by hunger — 

 and all over the world, wherever it is found, its 

 favorite food is rats and mice. The number 

 an industrious pair will destroy in a year is really 

 very great, and this species deserves the most 



SKELETON OF A BIKD OF PREY. (BALD EAGLE.) 



careful protection that man can give it. Fort- 

 unately, it and its subspecies are very widely 

 distributed, — more cosmopolitan, in fact, than 

 any other owl, save the short-eared. 



