AXD XEIGHBOURHOOD. 63 



personal knowledge, in Wales, not very many years 

 ago, the screech of the Barn Owl was considered a 

 certain warning of imminent death, and in another 

 part of England on my asking a gamekeeper why he 

 killed the Owls, he assured me that though he could 

 not say for certain that they killed game, yet they 

 were unlucky and no good to any one. I tried to 

 convince him that their unluckiness was the fact of 

 his destroying them, and that they did immense good 

 to many people, but I feel sure that I only wasted my 

 eloquence upon him, with the result of persuading 

 him that I was a harmless lunatic. One of the most 

 extraordinary accusations which I ever heard brought 

 against the Barn Owl was that of attacking sheep as 

 they lie asleep in the fields, and tearing their ears 

 and faces. In Spain this species and the Scops Owl 

 are accused of drinking the oil from the lamps kept 

 burning in the churches and chapels, and I have 

 heard of a similar story with regard to a species of 

 the family in Mexico. 



The Barn Owl is reported as common in most parts 

 of Europe except the most northern. I have met 

 with it in nearly all the Mediterranean countries 

 which I have visited. The Moors and Jews of 

 Morocco have some peculiar and curious supersti- 

 tions with regard to this bird, for an account of 

 which I must refer any of my readers who may be 

 interested in such subjects to the 'Ornithology of the 

 Straits of Gibraltar,' by Lieut. -Colonel L. II. Irby. 

 The Barn Owl, I think, makes very little or no nest, 

 but with us it often happens that the hole in a hollow 

 tree, selected by the old birds for rearing their brood, 

 is previously occupied by Jackdaws, which birds, in 

 several instances that have come under my notice. 



