60 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
the inner webs chiefly white; the tail is buff, with five transverse grey bars; the 
under parts are white, sometimes with a few dark spots; the facial disks are white, 
with a rusty yellow patch near the eye; the ruff is reddish yellow, tipped with brown; 
the beak is white; irides black. The whole length is about fourteen inches. 
The female resembles the male, but is slightly darker on the upper parts, and is 
considerably larger. Young birds are a little darker than the adults. Varieties 
are commonly met with having the yellow of the upper parts more largely inter- 
spersed with white, giving a mottled appearance; the tail is occasionally pure 
white throughout; and dark birds occur having all the under parts fawn colour, 
with dark spots, and the upper parts blacker. 
Other common names for this species are the Screech Owl, and the Church 
Owl. 
The body of the Barn Owl is very light compared to its bulk, rendering its 
flight buoyant and somewhat unsteady. When come upon suddenly in its roosting 
place in a corner beneath the roof of some shed it will assume ridiculous postures, 
throwing itself almost upon its back, hissing and snapping its beak, and seeking 
to defend itself with its claws, which are capable of inflicting an ugly scratch. 
There is no more useful bird to the farmer than the Barn Owl, and its value 
was fully appreciated by former builders of barns who always left an Owl’s window, 
.é, an opening in the wall below the roof to afford the Owl an entrance to deal 
with the rats and mice harbouring within. In destroying Owls with their guns 
and cruel pole-traps, keepers, who ignorantly credit them with devouring their 
young Pheasants, have proved but poor friends to agriculturists. The writer who 
now resides in a well-wooded district, highly preserved, not long ago had an 
exemplification of this when a neighbouring farmer threshed out a big rick of 
wheat, and found it swarming with mice that had either devoured or damaged a 
large portion of the grain. Close at hand stood an ancient ivy-covered church 
tower, which would certainly have provided a home, could they have escaped 
persecution, to the useful birds whose vigilance would have prevented the devas- 
tations of the mice. The Barn Owl feeds almost exclusively upon rats and mice, 
and destroys a great number of these mischievous pests, especially when there are 
Owlets to be fed, at which season Waterton noted that a mouse is brought to the 
nest every twelve minutes. This was out-done by a pair of Barn Owls watched 
by Lord Lilford who were seen to come to the nest with food “seventeen times 
in half an hour by the clock!”’ It sometimes varies its dietary with small birds, 
bats, moles, beetles, and fish. A tame White Owl, long in possession of the 
writer, was very fond of small trout that it invariably bolted tail first. Mice are 
swallowed whole, and the capacity of the Owl’s stomach is great, enabling it easily 
