17* 
THE TAWNY OWL. 
Though the tawny owl generally takes up its 
abode in dark and gloomy woods, still it occasionally 
settles very near the habitation of man. In a hollow 
sycamore, within a dozen yards of this house, there 
had been the nest of a tawny owl, time out of mind. 
Here the birds would have remained to this day, 
had not a colony of jackdaws, which I had encou- i 
raged, by hanging up wooden boxes for them in the ! 
next tree, actually driven the owls away, in order ' 
that they might get possession of the hole. Before 
this misfortune befell them, a servant once robbed • 
their nest, and placed the young ones in a willow | 
cage, not far from the hollow tree. The parent j 
birds brought food for their captive offspring ; but, i 
not being able to get it through the bars of the i 
cage, they left it on the ground on the outside. ; 
This food consisted of mice, rats, small birds, and 
fish, which I myself saw and examined. At the j 
present time, I have a tawny owl, sitting on four j 
eggs, in a large ash tree, close to a much- frequented j 
summer-house. The male stays in a spruce fir j 
tree, and hoots occasionally throughout the day. 1 1 
have found, by dissecting the ejected bolus of this | 
species, that it feeds copiously upon different sorts . 
of beetles. 
Were I just now requested to find a hollow tree j 
in the woods of the neighbourhood, I should say ;| 
that it were useless to go in quest of one ; so eager ] 
have the proprietors been to put into their pockets 
the value of every tree which was not making 
money," according to the cant phrase of modern ; 
wood-valuers. No bird has felt this felling of ancient i 
