548 MR. R. J. W. PURDY ON THE LUMINOSITY OF THE WHITE OWL. 
and around church towers, ruins, and hollow trees, especially 
where ivy and yew trees exist, wherein they take up their 
abode in the day-time. 
As long ago as February 3rd, 1907, one of these luminous 
birds was seen by my son and myself, as we were returning to 
Foulsham from a walk to Guist Hall. On reaching the top of 
Twyford Hill we noticed a light apparently moving in the 
direction of Wood Norton, and about a quarter of a mile to 
the north of us. After moving horizontally backwards and 
forwards several hundred yards, it rose in the air to the height 
of forty feet or more ; it then descended and again went 
through the same evolutions many times. The light was 
slightly reddish in the centre, and resembled a carriage lamp 
for which we at first mistook it. We watched it for twenty 
minutes and were quite at a loss to ascertain its cause. 
On December 1st, 1907, when again reaching the top of 
Twyford Hill, I noticed what I took to be the lamp of a motor 
bicycle moving rapidly along the Bintree road to the south. 
The light suddenly stopped, rose into the air above the trees 
and retraced its course. This it did several times, sometimes 
rising twenty to forty feet into the air, and then rapidly 
descending. I called my groom and his wife from their 
cottage a few hundred yards away, and they watched it with 
me for several minutes. I then went to my house about 
half a mile off, and from one of the attic windows watched 
it with my son and three servants for a short time. 
My son and I then went to the Twyford Lane accompanied 
by Brownsell, an intelligent labourer, where we saw the light 
moving to and fro across a field in which were a number of 
turnip heaps covered with straw. We walked towards it, when 
it evidently became alarmed, and flew alongside the brook, 
disappearing in a plantation near Twyford Church. 
About 10.30 the same evening, I cautiously approached 
this place, and, after waiting about ten minutes, the light 
emerged from a covert about 200 yards distant, flying back- 
wards and forwards across the field, at times approaching 
within fifty yards of where I was standing. It then alighted 
on' the ground for a few seconds, but before I could cover it 
