98 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



shape. Average size of 100 British eggs, 39.4x31.5. Max.: 

 45x33.4 and 39x33.5. Min. : 36.2x31.2 and 42.5x29.1 mm. 

 Incubation. — By hen aloDe, but male is also present in the nest- 

 hole, differing in this respect from Tawny Owl. Sometimes eggs 

 are laid in pairs with an interval of roughly a week between, so 

 that fresh eggs and well-grown young may be found in same nest. 

 At other times the clutch is laid at short intervals, probably two 

 days between each egg. Period probably about a month, but not 

 exactly determined. Breeding-season. — Generally during April or 

 early May, occasionally in late March, once in February. A second 

 brood often in July and nests with eggs or young have been found 

 from Sept. to December. 



Food. — Of small mammals, shrews, long and short tailed field 

 mice and bank-voles are most often taken ; also occasionally house- 

 mice, water-vole, young brown rats, long-eared bat and moles. 

 Among birds Sparrows and Starlings are often taken ; occasionally 

 Blackbird, Thrush, Greenfinch, Sedge-Warbler, Sky -Lark, etc. ; 

 frogs occasionally ; insects, chiefly coleoptera (Melolontha, Geo- 

 trupes, Pterostichus, etc.), and sometimes also lepidoptera (Noctuce). 



Distribution. — British Isles. — Resident. Generally distributed but 

 not abundant, and scarcer, especially in Scotland, than formerly. 

 Breeds very rarely in north-west and only rare vagrant to north- 

 east Scotland ; no certain record of its occurrence in Orkneys or 

 Shetlands ; one heard in Outer Hebrides by P. H. Bahr, June 

 1907, and one (?subsp.) Galson (O.H.), March 1915. 



Distribution. — Abroad. — West France, Portugal and Spain, south 

 Europe generally and north Africa to Mesopotamia. Replaced by 

 allied forms in central Europe and various parts of Africa, Asia, 

 Australia, and America. 



241. Tyto alba guttata (Brehm)— THE DARK-BREASTED 

 BARN-OWL. 



Strix guttata Brehm, Handb. Naturg. Vog. Deutschl., p. 106 (1831 — 

 In winter in Germany). 



Aluco flammeus (Linnaeus) (nee Pontopiddan), Yarrell, 1, p. 194 (part). 

 Strix flammed Linnaeus (nee Pontopiddan), Saunders, p. 291 (part). 



Description. — Adult male. Winter and summer. — Upper -parts so 

 much mottled grey that not much of the golden-buff shows, usually 

 darker and more mottled than females of T. a. alba but occasional 

 examples with white breasts have about as much mottling on upper- 

 parts as females of T. a. alba ; facial disk usually with reddish - 

 rust colour spreading over most of disk, but occasionally as in T. a. 

 alba, ruff usually more buff than in T. a. alba ; rest of under -parts 

 buff to deep buff with larger and more numerous dark brown spots 

 than in females of T. a. alba and these spots frequently taking form 

 of mesial streaks of alternate greyish-white and dark brown, occa- 

 sional examples are as white as T. a. alba but such examples are 



