SHORT-EARED OWL— TAWNY OWL. 
131 
He also tells that there were a great many of these 
birds about the district during the autumn and winter of 
1904; at Bullington no less than sixteen were counted on 
the wing at once, and on another occasion, when shooting 
there, seven were seen in the air at one time. 
It will be observed that the famous vole plague of 
1 892 coincides very nearly with the second supposed nest 
in the New Forest, and the first actual nest discovered 
on Bransbury Common. 
In the Isle of Wight it is much more frequently met 
with than the last species, but during the autumn and 
winter only. Colonel Hawker in his " Diary " records 
shooting one at Alum Bay, but considered it then a rare 
bird. 
In the marshes of the south-east coast of the county 
we have heard of this bird rising to a considerable height 
in the air in the daytime, and being mobbed by gulls. 
Genus — Syrnium, 
121. Syrnimn aluco. Tawny Owl. 
Brown Owl. 
A resident, universally but sparingly distributed on the 
mainland. Rare in the Isle of Wight. 
Gilbert White remarks ^ : " Having some acquaintance 
with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts up the fur of 
mice, and the feathers of birds, in pellets, after the manner 
of hawks : when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot 
eat The young of the brown owl will eat 
indiscriminately all that is brought — snails, rats, kittens, 
^ Letter xi. to Pennant. Selborne. September 6th, 1767. 
