WHITE, OR BARN OWL. 
113 
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. The species appears not to have been taken 
notice of by Turton in the latest edition of his transla- 
tion of Linnaeus. 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 
upwards ; the fore feet are short, five-toed, the inner 
toe very short, but furnished with a claw; hind feet 
also five-toed ; the ears are shorter than the fur, through 
which, though large, they are scarcely noticeable ; tlie 
nose is blunt; the colour of the back is dark brown, 
that of the belly, hoary ; the fur is long and extremely 
fine; the hind feet are placed very far back, and are 
also short ; the eyes exceeding small. This mischievous 
VOL. i. n 
