41 6 
OWL. 
bams of mice ; and as the young of these birds are 
a long time in the nest, and are fed even after they 
can fly, many hundreds of mice must be procured 
for their subsistence. This is evident from the 
great quantity of bones and fur, which is sometimes 
found in their haunts in the form of small pellets. 
A gentleman, on grubbing up an old pollard ash 
that had been the habitation of owls for many 
generations, found at the bottom many bushels of 
this rejected stuff. 
We shall conclude this account with an anecdote 
of the little owl,* which is about the size of a black- 
bird, and whose note resembles the voice of a young 
man, who repeatedly calls heme , edme. It resides 
among solitary ruins, caverns, and old deserted 
castles ; where, during the night, it continues, at 
intervals, its singular cry, and heme, edme is re- 
echoed from different parts of the building. u Hap- 
pening,” says Buffon, to sleep in one of the old 
turrets in the castle of Montbard, a little owl 
alighted on the window-frame, and before day-break, 
at three o’clock in the morning, awakened me with 
its cry, heme , edme. As I was listening to this sound, 
which was the more remarkable as it was close be- 
side me, I heard one of my servants who slept in 
the room over mine open the window, and, deceived 
by the resemblance of the scream edme, call out, 
Who's there below f My name is not Edme ; it is Peter." 
* Strix passerina. Linn. 
