256 BOMBAY DUCKS 
caterwauling and screeching in B flat. Our owlet 
friends in the’roof used to remain comparatively quiet 
from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This was presumably their sleep- 
ing-time. From the latter hour spasmodic outbursts of 
screeching would be heard. About five o'clock the birds 
used to emerge. 
The spotted owlet is the most diurnal of the strigide. 
He does not object to daylight in the least. Only 
yesterday morning, at about half-past seven, I saw one 
of these birds sitting on the stump of a defunct tree. 
Cunningham states that he saw a pair of them flying 
about, and quarrelling fiercely, over a glaring high road 
near Delhi, in the full blaze of the early afternoon of an 
April day, and when the hot wind was raging like the 
blast from an oven. 
Owls are built for night work. They have very large 
eyes, long ears, and their plumage is so constituted that 
they can fly absolutely noiselessly. They are birds of 
prey, and have to hunt in the silence of night, when the 
hum of insects is still, and the noises of the day are 
hushed ; hence the necessity of silent flight. Most owls 
lie low during the day; not so much because the sun 
hurts their eyes as on account of the rough handling 
they receive at the hands of the rest of the feathered 
folk. Birds are like boys at school, they set upon every 
strange individual which shows itself. Some owls sleep 
in trees; such find it very difficult to elude their pur- 
suers if they once expose themselves. They have no 
haven of refuge to which they can flee. Not so with 
the spotted owlet. It has a lair in the shape of a hole 
to which it can retire when mobbed. Consequently, it 
