LITTLE HORNED OWL. 
305 
tion, shot in Yorkshire ; and that Mr. Fothergill, of York, has another 
which was shot in the spring- of 1805, near Weatherhy, in that county. 
Mr. Foljambe further remarks, that he has heard of others which had 
been seen in the same neighbourhood. 
This species is about the size of the Sparrow Owl (^Stria; passerina.') 
Length seven inches and a half : the bill is black ; irides yellow. The 
whole plumage is variegated with dusky rufous-brown, and grey ; on 
the upper parts the brown predominates ; on the under parts the grey : 
the quills are transversely barred with rufous-white ; the legs are 
covered to the toes with rufous-grey feathers, spotted with brown ; the 
toes and claws are also brown. The feathers termed the ears appear to 
be very indistinct in a dead bird, being very short, and composed of 
three feathers on each side of the head. 
From the size and general resemblance of the Little Horned and Pas- 
serine Owls, it is not unlikely that they are frequently confounded, 
especially as the longer feathers on the head of the former are not at 
all times discoverable, and that both are subject to considerable variation 
in plumage. Buffon, who probably had frequent opportunities of exa- 
mining these birds, especially the Little Horned Owl, which is plentiful 
in France, says the irides of the Little Horned Owl are of a deeper yel- 
low, and the bill entirely black, which in the other is brown, with the 
tip yellow. The plumage is also dissimilar ; the number and regular 
disposition of the white spots on the wings and body are wanting. 
As this appears to be a migrative species on the continent, com- 
ing- with the swallow into France, and re-migrating about the same 
time that bird takes its departure, it is rather surprising no naturalist 
has till lately identified the species in England. They have been 
known to assemble on the continent in parts where field-mice abound, 
in order to prey upon them, and it has been suspected that a similar 
occurrence mentioned by Dale, in his Appendix to the History of 
Harwich, must have been this species. With this persuasion, Bulfon 
relates the circumstance as belonging- to the history of this spe- 
cies, whereas there can be no doubt it was the Hawk Owl, 
hrachyotos,') a bird in some respects of similar habits. Dale, from 
Childrey, says, In the year 1580, at Hallowtide, an army of mice so 
overran the marshes near South Minster, that they eat up the grass to 
the very roots. But at length a great number of strange-painted 
Owls came and devoured all the mice. The like happened in Essex 
in 1648.” 
Dale ascribes this to the Florn Owl, but we conceive he is equally 
mistaken in the species. It will be recollected by the ornithologist, 
X 
