84 THE BIRDS OE- SUSSEX. 



troublesome to feed, he had turned out two of these birds a 

 few months previously at Knepp Castle, and as Knepp is 

 only about ten miles from either of the above places, I have 

 a strong suspicion that ttese were the birds which he had 

 liberated. 



BARN OWL. 



Aluco fiammeus. 



This is the commonest species, and well known by the name 

 of Screech-Owl. Formerly it was particularly abundant, 

 and bred in the old stone-roofed houses, churches, and barns 

 in this neighbourhood ; but, though it is the best friend of 

 the farmer, and does little, if any, harm to game, it is much 

 persecuted, and like the Long- and Short-iared Owls, is 

 sought for for making fire-screens. 



It is also destroyed on account of its disturbing the rest 

 of the lodgers who are now occupying our farm-houses in the 

 summer months, and one of the consequences of this destruc- 

 tion is that the vermin of all sorts is increasing in every 

 direction. 



Mr. Waterton, and other authors, have stated that this 

 bird feeds on fish, and I was once watching one of them 

 perched on a branch of an oak, overhanging a pond on my 

 own premises, when it suddenly dropped from a height of 

 some eight feet, and carried off a carp in its claws. 



The late Mr. Dawson Rowley, Orn. Misc. vol. i. pp. 62-3, 

 has the following ; — 



" The beautiful variety in my collection, which has been 

 well drawn by Mr. Keulemans, was captured alive in a pigeon- 

 house near Brighton; there were two, but the other escaped. 

 . . . Mr. Henry Stevenson, in his ' Birds of Norfolk,' vol. i. 



