152 
OWLS. 
alarm. We have another testimony in favour of the Owls 
with regard to pigeons. A person who kept Pigeons, and 
had often a great number of his young ones destroyed, laid it 
on a pair of Owls which visited the premises, and accordingly, 
one moonlight night, he stationed himself, gun in hand, close 
to the dove-house, for the purpose of shooting the Owls. He 
had not taken his station long before he saw one of them fly- 
ing out with a prize in its claws ; he pulled his trigger, and 
down came the poor bird, hut instead of finding the carcass of 
a young Pigeon, he found an old rat nearly dead. Mr. 
Waterton met with a similar proof. He was one evening 
sitting under a shed, watching for rats, when he killed a very 
large one as it was coming out of its hole, about ten yards 
distant. He did not immediately go to take it up, hoping to 
get another shot ; when in a short time a Barn-Owl pounced 
down and flew away with it. 
But there is another food of which Owls partake, little 
guessed at, we suspect, by many, namely, fish. The great 
Snowy Owl above mentioned is known to he a regular fishing- 
bird. Motionless as the rock on which he sits, he waits 
patiently till a fish passes, when with the rapidity of a shot, 
he seizes it with his claws ; hut, although asserted by some 
naturalists, it had never been quite proved that the common 
Owls were also fish-catchers ; hut the fact has been now con- 
firmed by the testimony of more than one credible witness. 
Some years ago several young Owls had been taken from a 
nest, and placed in a yew-tree near a gentleman’s house. In 
this situation it was observed that the parent birds repeatedly 
brought them live fish, such as bull-heads and loaches, which 
had evidently been taken from a neighbouring brook, in which 
these species abounded. At subsequent times, bones of the 
same fish were frequently found lying under the trees on 
which the young Owls were observed to perch after they had 
left the nest, and where the old ones were accustomed to feed 
them. How they caught them was not then known; and the 
report of some labourers, employed to watch a fish-pond in 
the flower-garden, was not believed. This pond contained 
several gold and silver fish, which were observed to diminish in 
