THE BARN OWL 
219 
owl must have a liberal allowance of small birds, 
like English sparrows, and, if possible, an occa- 
sional small mammal, in each case with the feath- 
ers or hair upon it. Nature has constructed 
the owl to devour its prey entire, — feathers, 
hair, bones and all, on the spot where it is 
captured. 
By a curious rotary action of the stomach, 
all the desirable elements are extracted and as- 
similated, and the indigestible refuse — hair, 
feathers, bones, claws, etc. — is rolled into a 
ball called a “pellet,” which is cast up, and ex- 
pelled through the mouth. Theke pellets are 
sometimes collected at roosting-places, and when 
carefully examined by expert zoologists, it is 
possible to identify most of the animal remains, 
and tell what the bird has fed upon. 
The Barn-Owl, or Monkey-Faced Owl , 1 is 
the most oddly shaped of all the owls; it has 
the smoothest and most compact plumage, and 
proportionately the longest legs. Its general 
color is that of scorched linen — light brownish- 
yellow. Each small black eye is the centre of a 
sunburst of radiating feathers, and the whole 
face is surrounded by a heart-shaped ring of 
brown. 
The Barn-Owl is to rats and mice as the 
cuckoo is to the caterpillar. As a destroyer of 
the meanest vermin on earth (rats) this bird has 
no equal. Whether North or South, in the tropics 
or the temperate zone, it loves to live under the 
roofs of civilized man, especially in church bel- 
fries, where it is not molested. In the town of 
Ba,rrancas, at the head of the Orinoco delta, 
some Venezuelan boys piloted me into the best 
church in the place, showed me two Barn-Owls 
nesting over the altar, and urged me to shoot 
them then and there. My refusal because the 
birds were very thoroughly in sanctuary was 
with difficulty comprehended. 
Many observations on the food habits of this 
bird have been made by examining the pellets 
that have been gathered from its roosting place. 
In June, 1890, Dr. A. K. Fisher collected 200 
pellets that had accumulated from two birds 
that roosted and nested in one of the towers of 
the Smithsonian building. These contained 
454 skulls, of which 225 were of meadow-mice, 
2 of pine-mice, 179 of house-mice, 20 were of 
1 Strix pra-tin' co-la. Length, from 15 to 17 
inches. 
rats, 6 of jumping mice, 20 shrews, 1 star-nosed 
mole and 1 vesper-sparrow. 
The Barn-Owl rarely molests birds — probably 
never does so except when forced by hunger — 
and all over the world, wherever it is found, its 
favorite food is rats and mice. The number 
an industrious pair will destroy in a year is really 
very great, and this species deserves the most 
SKELETON OF A BIRD OF PREY. (BALD EAGLE.) 
1, Upper mandible, 
2, Lower mandible, 
3, Hyoid, 
4, External nostril, 
5, Orbit, 
6, Occiput, 
7, Cervical vertebrae, 
8, Clavicles, 
9, Coracoid, 
10, Ulna, 
21, Digits 
11, Radius, 
12, Carpals, 
13, Metacarpals, 
14, Digits, 
15, Sternum, 
16, Keel of sternum, 
17, Pelvis, 
18, Fibula, 
19, Tibia, 
20, Tarsus, 
foot. 
careful protection that man can give it. Fort- 
unately, it and its subspecies are very widely 
distributed, — more cosmopolitan, in fact, than 
any other owl, save the short-eared. 
