Mammalia, birds, and fishes. I have kept many of this 

 species in confinement, but have been singularly unfor- 

 tunate with them, as for some unknown reason I have 

 lost them all within three or four years of their arrival 

 at Lilford. 



After the death of Mr. Edward Fountaine, of Easton, 

 near Norwich, whose success in rearing Owls in cap- 

 tivity is well known to all British ornithologists, I 

 purchased six of this species from his executor, and sent 

 the keeper of my aviaries to fetch them from Easton ; 

 they arrived safely at Lilford on August 29, 1889, but 

 the person in whose charge they had been left in 

 Norfolk could give my man no precise information as to 

 their age or sex, nor, indeed, could she positively state 

 which, if any, of the six birds had been bred at Easton ; 

 two at least were adult males. On June 4, 1890, a 

 pair of these Owls showed an inclination to nest by 

 scratching a hole in the gravel of their aviary : we 

 immediately removed the other birds and left this pair 

 in sole possession of a roomy compartment, protecting 

 them from outside observation by fastening garden 

 matting all round the wired front and one side of the 

 enclosure, which was further protected at the back and 

 other side by a high stone wall. On June 7 the female 

 bird was sitting, and we left her undisturbed till 

 July 10 ; during this time she was regularly fed by the 

 male, and, as far as we could ascertain, seldom, if ever, 

 left her nest ; the male bird savagely attacked any one 

 who even opened the door to throw r in food, and both 

 birds cried savagely at the mere sound of human foot- 

 steps outside their abode. On the day last named my 



