THE TAWNY OWL 7 
besides the items already mentioned, sometimes comprises small fish, such as 
loaches and bull-heads, and earth-worms, but there can be no doubt that  short- 
tailed field mice form the standing dish. The writer had numerous young 
Pheasants close to the spots where his favourite Owls harboured, and is confident 
that none of them were ever taken; young rabbits would occasionally be 
devoured, and instances are known of leverets being eaten, but mice and insects 
are the favourite food. 
When it is hunting in the dark the eyes of the Tawny Owl scintillate like 
red hot coals. One of the writer’s tame birds settled within a few inches of his 
head on a branch of a tree close to which he was standing in wait, at dusk, for 
marauding magpies in a plantation, and the brilliant glare of its eyes, directed 
straight to the front, will never be forgotten. 
The Tawny Owl has the facial disk very large and complete, with a conspic- 
uous and complete ruff; head extremely large and round; tarsi very short with the 
toes densely feathered; wings long and much rounded; tail broad, rounded, of 
twelve arched and rounded feathers. The plumage, which in its general tints 
closely matches those of the surroundings of the roosting place, is full and very 
soft; reddish or greyish brown, mottled and longitudinally streaked with dark 
brown; on the wings and scapulars are some large white spots. The beak is 
whitish-horn colour; irides almost black; eyelids edged with pink; claws horn 
white with darker tips. The female does not differ from the male, but is larger. 
Length from fourteen to sixteen inches. Young birds are rather more rufous 
than the adults in the red form, and are grey in the grey form. 
