104 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
owls do any harm at all to game, and all owls do 
far more good than harm. The short-eared owls, 
by preying on young game, may incur the wrath 
of the keeper in the North, where they breed, but 
seeing that in the South these owls appear only 
when there is no young game, there is no case 
against them. The worst evidence I ever heard 
brought against the barn-owl was that one was 
found in possession of a dead pheasant chick, though 
there seemed to be considerable doubt as to how 
it came by it. It is certain, however, that where 
barn-owls forage in the vicinity of young pheasants, 
after they go to roost, they are apt to frighten 
them. The tawny, brown, or wood, and the long- 
eared owls are the only ones against which may be 
brought just accusation of killing game. Of the 
two, the long-eared sort is the most ferocious, 
certainly in appearance. I had shifted a batch of 
pheasants to covert, which an assistant was to look 
after. The man came to me the morning following 
the birds’ first night in covert, and said there must 
be stoats on the war-path, for he had found a bird 
with its head off. I went to investigate. There 
was no doubt about the bird’s head being off, and 
the flesh was picked off the neck, which told me 
that the crime had not been committed by stoats. 
The body of the bird lay at the edge of the ride, 
and at dusk I set a trap to it, leaving instructions 
that it was to be thrown at daybreak next morning, 
