THE STORY OF A BROWN OWL. 
15 
a blackbird, when some little way off the tree where the owls were, 
and when he could not possibly see them, suddenly begin cackling 
and uttering his shrill alarm note, and then fly off to their tree and 
soon be joined by almost every other bird within hearing distance. 
The birds to whom this sport seemed most attractive were thrushes, 
blackbirds, chaffinches, wrens, and hedge sparrows, though many 
other species were often represented. 
I have twice found owls near Oxford by hearing other birds 
teasing them. Once a friend and myself, while walking near 
Beckley, heard some chaffinches in a great state of excitement 
round an ivied tree. On carefully looking we discovered an owl 
squeezed close against the trunk, and when I threw up a bit of 
stick a fine pair of Brown Owls flew out. Another day we found a 
number of jays chattering at a Brown Owl in a hollow tree on the 
edge of Bagley Wood. The owl flew off when we got to the tree, 
and the jays hunted him all through the wood, always showing us 
which tree he stopped in. 
Though “ Tommy ” used to go some distance from home, she 
did not seem in any degree to get less tame. One night I was 
walking in a wood about three-quarters of a mile off, when 1 heard 
close to me, what seemed to be a meeting of owls—there were 
certainly as many as four of them. After listening to them for 
some time, by way of experiment, I called “ Tommy.” All became 
silent at once except “ Tommy,” who was there, and kept calling, 
and flying on ahead of me, till I reached home, when she came in 
at my window. 
Owls are generally supposed to shun bright light, but I 
frequently noticed that both “Tommy” and her mate roosted in 
the tops of the trees so as to be fully in the rays of the sun; and 
“ Tommy,” at any rate, was quite at home in gaslight. 
As soon as it was growing dusk, the two owls used to begin 
calling to each other, and then long before it was dark started off 
hunting. Their flight is wonderfully silent, and they can travel a 
long way without moving their wings. I was not able to see 
whether they catch mice by watching for them, as I saw them catch 
beetles, or whether they hunt as they fly. I once saw “ Tommy ” 
January, 1893. 
