182 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
about the size of a Skylark's, and of some greenish 
or greenish-grey tint in ground colour, with a 
number of rather small and indecisive spots, 
streaks, and stains of leaden-grey and reddish or 
greenish-brown. They have exactly the unobtru- 
sive, undecided appearance, in their colour and 
markings, of eggs which are meant to be more or 
less like a dozen different patterns, and to attract 
little notice in any company. Occasionally they 
are blue, without markings of any kind ; but this 
happens very rarely, and it is doubtful whether it 
is not merely owing to the same failure of the 
colouring matter which will occasionally produce a 
blue Blackbird's or Chaffinch's egg. It may be 
interesting to mention that the larger Great 
Spotted Cuckoo, which breeds in Spain, but has 
now and then strayed to this country, is accustomed 
to put its eggs into the nest of the Magpie. 
BARN OWL. 
{Strix flammea.) 
White Owl, Screech Owl, Church Owl.— The 
Barn Owl is still fairly common, in spite of much 
ignorant persecution, in most parts of the kingdom 
except the north of Scotland ; and as the know- 
ledge gradually gains ground that it is one of the 
