\ 



WHITE, OR BARN OWL. 59 



dusky; primaries and secondaries the same, thinly barred and 

 thickly sprinkled with dull purplish brown; tail two inches shorter 

 than the tips of the wings, even, or very slightly forked, pale yel- 

 lowish, crossed with five bars of brown, and thickly dotted with 

 the same; whole lower parts pure white, thinly interspersed with 

 small round spots of blackish; thighs the same; legs long, thinly 

 covered with short white down nearly to the feet, which are of a 

 dirty white and thickly warted; toes thinly clad with white hairs; 

 legs and feet large and clumsy. The ridge or shoulder of the 

 wing is tinged with bright orange brown. The aged bird is more 

 white; in some the spots of black on the breast are wanting, and 

 the color below a pale yellow; in others a pure white. 



The female measures fifteen inches and a half in length, and 

 three feet eight inches in extent; is much darker above; the lower 

 parts tinged with tawny, and marked also with round spots of 

 black. One of these was lately sent me, which was shot on the 

 border of the meadows below Philadelphia. Its stomach contain- 

 ed the mangled carcases of four large meadow mice, hair, bones 

 and all. The common practice of most Owls is, after breaking 

 the bones, to swallow the mouse entire; the bones, hair and other 

 indigestible parts are afterwards discharged from the mouth in 

 large roundish dry balls, that are frequently met with in such 

 places as these birds usually haunt. 



As the meadow mouse is so eagerly sought after by those birds 

 and also by great numbers of Hawks, which regularly at the com- 

 mencement of winter resort to the meadows below Philadelphia, 

 and to the marshes along the sea shore for the purpose of feeding 

 on these little animals, some account of them may not be impro- 

 per in this place. Fig. 3. represents the meadow mouse drawn by 

 the same scale, viz. reduced to one half its natural dimensions. 

 This species appears not to have been taken notice of by Turton 

 in the latest edition of his translation of Linnseus. From the nose 

 to the insertion of the tail it measures four inches ; the tail is be- 



