A Visit to Mr. Hamlyn's. 
75 
in and out of the dish a dozen times or more before making up 
its mind to thoroughly wet itself. This bird has now got quite 
tame. One day, recently, when photographing its mother, I 
left my Reflex camera in the aviary, and on my return, a few 
minutes later, I found it perched on the view-finder, examining 
itself in the glass. These are one of the commonest of the 
South African Owls. They take their name from the large 
white spots with which the back of their heads, backs, and wing 
coverts are adorned. These markings, which are plainly seen 
in the photographs, give the birds a very handsome appearance, 
So far, with the exce])tion of beak snappmg and hissing, I have 
heard them make no noise, but we have so many barn and tawny 
owls around the house at night that their cries may be easily 
mistaken for those of these birds. 
Dr. Stark, writing of Bubo maciilosus in the Western 
part of Cape Colony, on October 8th, 1896, says: — "This 
" morning, as I was climbing the side of a rocky kopje, about 
" a quarter of a mile from the village, a large Horned Owl 
" flew from just in front of me, leaving exposed two eggs 
" lying in a scratching in the earth on a shelf of rock, shel- 
" tered by low weeds and bushes. They flew a short distance 
and sat fully exposed on a rock with horns erect, and with 
" the brilliant yellow sides ccjnspicuous. I had previously 
seen another Bubo on this side of the hill, and heard it hoot 
one evening— a rather mellow how-how, which reminded me 
of the noise of a baboon. These owls are very common 
" in the neighbourhood, and I have often startled them from 
their nests under bushes on the bush-covered plains and 
sides of the hills. Next morning when I returned to the 
" nest, I found both the eggs gone; one lay broken about ten 
feet off under a rock; the nest was a flat space of ground, 
" about a foot across, with a few leaves and bits of broken 
dead stick strewed promiscuously about it." 
They feed on mice, rats and small birds, but are quite 
capable of tackling larger prey, and I suspect that they work a 
good deal of destruction amongst the young guinea fowl, fran- 
colin and quail, as they appear to be to some extent diurnal. 
