72 
Owl, Little (Pages 31 and 32). — The little owl is fairly common, 
but local, being only found breeding in ihe Midlands and South of 
England, never wandering far away. This odd little creature is really 
not a true British bird, having been imported at different limes from 
the Continent and liberated in Hampshire and Northamptonshire, 
the first lot as long as 65 years ago. Since then, however, they 
have been allowed to breed, until now they are a well-established 
species. The little owl is only inches in length and is of a light* 
brown colour, spotted and striped with white. The legs are covered 
with short hair like feathers right down to the claws. 
A very peculiar habit of this bird is the restless manner in which it 
bobs up and down. It will sit crouched down with bent shoulders 
and blink its eyes for two or three minutes on end without moving its 
body and then suddenly jerk itself bolt-upright, craning its neck to the 
utmost and jerking out its head sideways as though it were trying 
to see past someone sitting in front of it, then down it bobs again to 
repeat the same performance after a minute or two*s rest. 
The eggs of the little owl are almost round and pure white, three 
to five being laid in a very poor apology for a nest. The site of the 
nest varies almost as much as that of the common sparrow. In ruins, 
outhouses, rocks, ivy, burrows, hollow trees or the bare open ground. 
Petrel, Storm- (Pages 49*54) (also known as “Mother Carey's 
chicken *'). — This is the smallest of the web-footed birds, being only 
six inches in length. It .spends its whole life at sea. merely coming to 
land for a short period each season to breed. It is extremely local, 
being only found in a few favoured parts of our shores, but at these 
particular haunts these gentle little creatures are found in thousands. 
It is of a dull, sooty-black colour, relieved with a little white on 
the rump. Being a night feeder, it is seldom seen abroad 
through the day, unless at some considerable distance 
from land. During a prolonged spell of bad weather, however, 
petrels are not infrequently seen for days together inside the 
harbours flitting on the troubled surface of the water, apparently 
collecting small floating globubes of oil. 
The breeding-ground of the petrels may be repeatedly visited 
without their presence being detected. In the majority of cases 
they creep under the large boulders scattered about the shores 
of some wild, unfrequented island and worm their way under the 
smaller stones until they reach the solid ground, where they scratch 
a slight hollow, or very often lay their single white egg with its 
zone of faint lavender specks on th« bare rock, the nest in some 
cases being quite ten feet below the surface of the stones and 
boulders. Another favourite site is in the soft peaty soil, in which 
they scratch a burrow for themselves, or use an old puffin burrow. 
The old birds when taken from the nests make no attempt to 
escape, being apparently too dazed by the daylight. When put 
on a flat rock, they rest with the whole of the fore legs on the 
ground, or, in other words, appear to walk on the knee-joints. 
On being thrown into the air, they make off acro.ss the 
water in a very erratic manner, flying close to the surface and 
wobbling about from side to side, similarly to a bat. 
A very remarkable feature of the storm-petrel is that comparatively 
few birds have perfect feet. Either a whole claw, or a portion of one 
is missing, or in some cases it is very much dwarfed or deformed. 
