10 
THE STORY OF A BROWN OWL. 
to tear to pieces. “Tommy” had a curious way of tucking in her 
feathers when she ran, which made her legs seem very long, and 
gave her a most ludicrous appearance. Nothing ever escaped her 
notice, and sometimes while watching anything she would turn 
her head almost completely round. Though she could not fly 
when I first had her, “ Tommy” could spring a long way, and soon 
caught a small bird I let loose in the room. It was interesting to 
watch her method of eating a bird. First, the long feathers of the 
wings and tail were pulled out; then the bones of the legs and 
wings were carefully fractured in several places, so that there might 
be no difficulty in swallowing. After this preparation, the head was 
twisted off and swallowed, to be immediately followed by the rest of 
the body. Some time after she would cast up a pellet consisting of 
the skull and bones neatly wrapped up in feathers. A mouse was 
always swallowed head first, without any preliminaries. 
When frightened the Brown Owl compresses its feathers, and 
gets close against the trunk of a tree, or whatever it is near, making 
itself as small as it can; and so the bird is very hard to see when it 
is perched in an ivied tree, which is its favourite roosting place. 
The only person of whom “Tommy” was very much afraid was a 
man who brought sacks of coal to empty into a cupboard in my 
room, for he once put some coal into the cupboard while “Tommy” 
was in there. And so whenever he came into the room she would 
make herself as small as she could and squeeze close up against the 
wall. 
I took her home at Christmas, and again at Easter, and when I 
brought her back to Oxford after Easter her wings had grown, and 
she was able to fly. I kept my window open and at dusk she used 
to fly out, and would usually be back in my room by morning. 
Sometimes, however, she stayed away for a day in other places. 
Once she had the audacity to visit the Head of the College, and 
another time she was caught in a house a few doors off, and after 
three days’ absence returned late at night and very hungry. I had 
nothing to give her except a frog I had caught for a snake, which 
she ate greedily. I never tried whether she would eat fish, but I saw 
an article m one of the magazines a short time ago, in which 
January, 1893. 
