NATURAL HISTORY 
snore and hiss in a tremendous manner ; and these menaces 
well answer the intention of intimidating : for I have known 
a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining 
the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres. White 
owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from 
this screaming probably arose the common people^s imagi- 
nary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously 
think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage 
of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I 
have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps 
it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should 
not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be 
enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and 
watchful quarry. 
While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to 
mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of 
Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash 
that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he dis- 
covered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he 
could not account for. After some examination, he found 
that it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps 
of birds and bats) that had been heaping together for ages, 
being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many genera- 
tions of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and 
feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. 
He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this 
kind of substance/ 
Mr. W. Boulton, of Beverley, referring to a bird of this species which 
he had reared from the nest, observed (" Zoologist," 1863, p. 8765) : — 
" It does ' hoot' exactly like the long eared owl, but not so frequently. 
I use the term 'hoot' in contradistinction to 'screech,' which it often 
does when irritated." — Ed. 
^ In order to ascertaiu the nature of the food of owls, a German 
naturalist, Dr. Altum, collected their " pellets" at different seasons of 
the year, and in different localities, and carefully examined them, with 
the following remarkable results. In 706 peUets of the white or barn 
owl he found the remains of the following animals : bats 16, rats 3, 
mice 237, voles 693, shrews 1590, mole 1, small birds 22. In 210 
pelleis of the tawny o\\ 1 (S. aluco) he found remains of stoat 1 , rats 6, 
mice 42, voles 296, squirrel 1, shrews 33, moles 48, smaU bird? "IK, and 
