these birds, their outcries ])reseiitly bring a band of enemies around it. But although the Barn-owl is thus 
so imbecile by day as to sutfer itself to be insulted with impunity by the pettiest aggressor, it assumes a very 
different character when darkness restores to it tlie faculty of clearly distinguishing objects. 
“ By watching near its haunts, or taking up a station in the neighbourhood of some farm-steading fre- 
(picnted by it, one may dimly see it advance with silent and gliding flight, skimming over the fields, shooting 
along the hedge-bank, deviating this way and that, and now perhaps sweeping overhead, without causing 
the slightest sound by the flappings of its downy wings. On perceiving an object, it drops to the ground, 
secures its prey in a moment, and, uttering a shrill cry, dies off with it in its claws. In a little time it 
returns, and thus continues prowling about the farmyard for hours. The domestic Mouse, Wood-mouse, 
common Arvicola, Shrew, Lark, and young birds of different species are the objects which I have found in 
its stomach. The mice are generally swallowed entire, often without their bones being broken ; but the birds 
are torn to pieces. Young hares and rabbits, as w'ell as lepidopterous and coleopterous insects, are said to 
form part of its food; and Mr. Waterton informs us that it carries off rats, and occasionally catches fish. 
‘Some years ago,’ he says, ‘on a fine evening in July, long before it was dark, as I was standing on the 
middle of the bridge, and minuting the Owl by my watch, as she brought mice into her nest ; all on a 
sudden she dropt perpendicularly into the water. Thinking she had fallen down in epilepsy, my first thoughts 
w'ere to go and fetch the boat ; but before I had well got to the end of the bridge I saw the Owl rise out of 
the water, with a fish in her claws, and take it to the nest.’ It has been alleged that it does not prey on 
Shrews ; but I have found four skulls of these animals, along with two of an Arvicola, in the stomach of one. 
The number it swallows may seem surprising to a person who does not consider how many mice may be 
squeezed into a sack twm inches in diameter. Remains of eight or ten animals may sometimes be found in 
its stomach, but in various degrees of decomj)ositlon, the greater part of some having passed into the intes- 
tine before the rest have been procured. The skulls and other bones, enveloped in the hair, are ejected in 
pellets after the bird has retired to its resting-place. ‘ When it has young,’ says Waterton, ‘ the Barn-Owl 
will bring a mouse to its nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes. But in order to have a proper idea 
of the enormous number of mice which this bird destroys, Ave must examine the pellets which it ejects from 
its stomach, in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In 
sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the Owl on the old gateway Avas cleaned out, there has 
been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets.’” 
The sexual difference is not very apparent, for externally the male and female are very similar. The 
young, during the first three or four Aveeks of their existence, are clothed in an immaculate Avhite down ; 
next come feathers, first in the form of a frill round the face, then the primaries appear; and by the end of 
six Aveeks, the brood, Avhich is generally four in number, are very like the adults ; sometimes, hoAvev'er, a 
taAvny tint pervades the breast and under surface, while usually these parts are pure Avhite. Mr. Stevenson 
states, in his ‘Birds of Norfolk, that a dark v'ariety, supposed to be migrants from the Danish Islands, some- 
times occurs in this country ; an example of this variety, if I imagine rightly, Avas kindly shot for me by the 
Earl of Ducie, on the 6th of October, 1868, at his seat at Sarsden, in Oxfordshire, and is at once the 
smallest and most beautifully marked Owl I have ever seen : all the under surface was delicate buff, nume- 
rously speckled with grey ; it weighed 8^ ounces, measured 11 inches in length, 27 inches from tip to tip 
of the Avings ; the length of the Aving from the tarsal joint Avas 10^ inches, of the tail 4i, and the tarsi 2^ ; 
it Avas apparently a fully adult bird, and dissection proved it to be a female. I have little doubt it Avas a 
migrant, as it rose out of a dry ditch at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and had two freshly caught field-mice in 
its stomach. To test the verity of this opinion, I asked Loi'd Dueie to have another OavI shot in the 
same neighbourhood; and on the 18th of November a female was sent me which proved to be of the ordi- 
nary kind. In this specimen all the under surface Avas snow'-Avhite, Avith a feAv specks of grey on the flanks 
and under the shoulders; its AA^eight was 12i ounces; tlie expanse of its Avings 29 inches, the length of the 
wing from the carpal joint 10, of the tail 4|, and of the tarsi 2|- ; this Avas in every respect a very different 
bird from the buff-coloured one Avhich preceded it. Mr. Henry Shaw, of Shrewsbury, Avho has paid great 
attention to the change of plumage undergone by various birds, Avrites to me — “ From experience and dis- 
section I have found all the young female OavIs to he more or less spotted, their Avings strongly marked, 
and the AA-ebs of the first quill feathers broader than Avhen the bird is adult ; they are also a trifle longer than 
the corresponding feathers in the opposite sex. The males have the breast Avhite from the nest, and the 
markings of the Avings and back less numerous. In the adults of both sexes the markings decrease as 
they advance in yeiirs ; and very old males entirely lose the markings of the quills.” 
The eggs, Avhich are four or fiAC in number, are pure Avhite, and differ considerably in form, some being 
much more lengthened than others. 
The figures, Avhich represent old and young, are of the size of life. 
