SOMETHING ABOUT THE OWL. 
The wish and request that this Society will print “ something 
about the owl ” is received from time to time, from members 
residing in different parts of the country. They think that his 
value as a mouse destroyer is not sufficiently well known, and 
that his grotesque beauty and other fascinating qualities are not 
properly appreciated. It moves them to indignation to see that, 
instead of being universally protected and made much of, this 
wonderful fowl is cruelly harrowed by most people ; that it is 
robbed of its eggs and young, and that the country loafer who 
■owns a gun, and has a commission from the local bird-stuffer to 
get him something out of the common, ruthlessly slaughters 
*every owl he comes across. An even worse enemy is the game- 
keeper, who makes the most of his opportunities; it is a common 
thing to see the strange, lovely white bird nailed up or suspended 
.along with hawks, crows, stoats, and other real or supposed 
•enemies of the pheasant. In some cases the white form is 
not placed on the gibbet. The owner of a fine estate said to me 
some time ago : “ The white and brown owls that used to breed 
nere in the hollow trees in the park, and serenade us round the 
house at nights, have all vanished. I gave my keepers strict 
orders to spare them ; but I am perfectly sure that they killed them 
and thrust their bodies away out of sight.” There are, however, 
■some keepers who do not shoot owls. A few weeks ago I spent 
an evening with one of these powerful friends of the owl in his 
own cabin. For the last quarter of a century this man has filled 
the post of head keeper on an estate of about 50,000 acres, in the 
wildest part of England. Twenty-five years ago, he said, owls, 
both brown and white, were common on the estate ; now there 
were none. Not because they had been persecuted; he had 
never shot them, nor taken their eggs, as he considered them useful 
birds. How then did he account for their disappearance ? He 
very frankly confessed that they had all no doubt been caught in 
pole-traps set to take crows, buzzards and kestrels ; these with 
