NOTES TO THE 
strong buttresses of bone are thrown (about every inch or so) 
across the cavity of the horn in such a manner as to give it 
the greatest possible support and strength. I have cut a cow's 
horn and skull into several sections to show these buttresses 
of bone, and now that the preparation is finished I have 
another specimen to show that there is design and beauty in all 
created objects. 
Spotted Flycatcher, p. 138. — The spotted flycatcher takes all 
his food upon the wing. He leaves the branch with a dart, and 
returns to the same spot. Its brother, the black and white fly- 
catcher, frequents bogs in woods, and places where gnats abound. 
The latter bird is easily kept in confinement, becomes tame in 
a few days, and feeds upon eggs and bread and a little scraped 
beef, and an occasional meal-worm. As a rule he lives round the 
margins of woods and groves of trees. He is rarely found in the 
interior of a wood. 
Mr. Bartlett informs me that a spotted flycatcher that built 
in the climbing stalk of a passion flower outside his house in 
the Zoological (hardens used to throw up little shining pill-like 
bodies that looked like blue glass. It appears from this that 
flycatchers disgorge the horn-like and shining bodies of blow- 
flies and other insects in pellets, just as an owl disgorges the 
pellets containing the bones and skins of the mice and rats. In 
the case of house-martins, bats, &c., the hard skins of the in- 
sects are not disgorged as pellets, but pass through the digestive 
organs. 
White or Barn Owl, p. 140. — This bird is sometimes cauglit in 
gins on the tops of posts set for jays in w^oods. The young ones are 
taken from holes of trees and barns ; both the young and old tame 
very soon ; they are easily raised upon sheep's " fat-gut," with 
mouse or bird now and then. They eat moles in dry weather. The 
old birds throw^ their pellets outside the nest, the young ones throw 
them up inside. As a rule they return to the same breeding- 
place every year. Mr. Davy has had three lots of young owls 
from one pair of old ones out of the same nest in one season. 
They breed up to the end of October. Young ones are found in 
May. The boys in Hainault Forest used to collect owls' eggs for 
INIr. Davy, as the eggs were of more value than young birds. 
The old owl kept on laying till she was found dead in the 
nest with a very small egg, having laid from tw^elve to fourteen 
eggs in succession in the space of three weeks. There are from 
three to fi ve young in a nest, smi sometimes there is as much as 
a week's difference in the age of the young ones, some being in 
the " white down " and others nearly in " full feather." They fly 
