192 
NATURE NOTES 
There can be but little doubt but that the plagues of rats 
and mice with which we are periodically visited are directly 
traceable to the short-sighted policy of those who have done all 
in their power to exterminate the owls and kestrels which were 
formerly so common everywhere. It is not contended that the 
farmer himself is responsible for this wanton destruction, 
although he has done but little to befriend two birds which may 
be numbered amongst his greatest friends. The keepers of 
game-preservers, with mistaken zeal, have systematically de- 
stroyed both these good friends of the farmer and of the gam.e- 
preserver, until the owl is now quite a rarity in many parts and 
the kestrel practically extinct in several counties. The barn 
owl subsists largely on rats, mice, beetles, and cockchafers, 
and is the most beneficial of the whole tribe to the farmer. 
He may occasionally pounce down upon a young rabbit in 
the moonlight, but of what v’alue to any one is an occasional 
rabbit sacrificed as a tit-bit to one whose life is so well employed 
in destroying the enemies of mankind ? The other owls are 
vermin destroyers also, but not to quite the same extent as the 
barn owl, whose presence in the district ensures the farmer 
against the depredations of vermin and so saves him not only 
his corn and stores, but also the expense which is incidental to 
trapping and the destruction of vermin in other waj's. 
The kestrel is also a devourer of mice, beetles, and other 
insects, and as such deserves the strictest preservation. His 
presence amongst the hen-coops is not necessarily indicati\-e 
of a desire to annex one of the chickens from the brood. Rather 
is it evidence, as in the case of an owl seen under similar con- 
ditions, that there are rats and mice in the neighbourhood, 
attracted thither, no doubt, by the presence of the food thrown 
down for the chickens. Numerous instances could be brought 
forward in support of the argument that owls and kestrels are 
the farmers’ friends. Some two years ago a pair of the former 
took uj) their abode in an old barn on a farm whicli was then 
under the care of the writer, and upon which some ten or twel\’e 
hundred .small chickens were being reared in tlie open fields. 
Night after night they would hover round close over one’s head, 
knowing that they were safe from luirm, and to see them hawk- 
ing in the air for beetles and cockchafers was an exceedingly 
picturesque sight. They were frequently to be seen in the 
neighbourhood of the coojis, before the chickens had gone to 
roost, yet never did they attempt to seize one of them, and 
the hens themselves grew quite used to the large unwieldy 
i)irds. Usually on this farm there was a large number of rats, 
attracted by the quantity of food that was always on the i)re- 
mises, but soon after the appearance of the owls on the scene 
their numbers grew j)erce])tibly smaller, and their bones, which 
were cast up by the owls in jicllets together with the scales 
