WHITE, OR BARN OWL. 
267 
secondaries the same, thinly barred, and thickly sprinkled with 
dull purplish brown ; tail, two inches shorter than the tips of 
the wings, even, or very slightly forked, pale yellowish, 
crossed with five bars of brown, and thickly dotted with the 
same ; whole lower parts, pure white, thinly interspersed with 
small round spots of blackish ; thighs, the same ; legs, long, 
thinly covered with short white down nearly to the feet, which 
are of a dirty white, and thickly warted ; toes, thinly clad with 
white hairs ; legs and feet, large and clumsy ; the ridge, or 
shoulder of the wing, is tinged with bright orange brown. 
The aged bird is more white ; in some, the spots of black on 
the breast are wanting, and the colour below, a pale yellow ; 
in others, a pure white. 
The female measures fifteen inches and a half in length, 
and three feet eight inches in extent; is much darker above ; 
the lower parts tinged with tawny, and marked also with 
round spots of black. One of these was lately sent me, which 
was shot on the border of the meadows below Philadelphia. 
Its stomach contained the mangled carcasses of four large 
meadow mice, hair, bones, and all. The common practice of 
most Owls is, after breaking the bones, to swallow the mouse 
entire ; the bones, hair, and other indigestible parts, are after- 
wards discharged from the mouth in large roundish dry balls, 
that are frequently met with in such places as these birds 
usually haunt. 
As the meadow mouse is so eagerly sought after by those 
birds, and also by great numbers of Hawks, which regularly, 
at the commencement of winter, resort to the meadows below 
Philadelphia, and to the marshes along the sea shore, for the 
purpose of feeding on these little animals, some account of 
them may not be improper in this place. Fig. 8, represents 
the meadow mouse drawn by the same scale, viz. reduced to 
one-half its natural dimensions. This species appears not to 
have been taken notice of by Turton in the latest edition 
of his translation of Linnseus. From the nose to the insertion 
of the tail, it measures four inches ; the tail is between 
three quarters and an inch long, hairy, and usually curves 
