BIRD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS 129 
SHORT-EARED OWL. 
Pellets of this bird picked up close to the nest contained 
bones and fur of water vole#2, field mice43, shrews, brown rat, 
small warbler.4+ 
TAWNY OWL. 
That close observer of birds, Gilbert White, so long ago as 
1788 recorded that this bird casts pellets. He says: ‘“‘ Having 
some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts 
up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds, in pellets, after the 
manner of hawks.’’45 
Since Gilbert White’s day, numerous observers have col- 
lected and noted the contents of the castings of this owl. The 
results of their investigations prove that the pellets include 
remains of :— 
Brown Rat Rabbit fur 
House Mouse Stoat 
Field Vole — Squirrel 
Long-tailed Field Mouse Beetles (Cavabus granulatus, 
Bank Vole Dytiscus marginalis, Silpha rugosa, 
Common Shrew Harpalus] sp., Geotrupes  ster- 
Mole covarius, etc.46 
Small birds 
Pellets of Tawny Owl in the Essex Museum collection contain 
mammalian fur, jaws and other bones of both mus and field vole, 
the pelvis with caudal vertebre, and a rear tibia and fibula, of a 
mole, sterna of small birds, and thoraces and elytra of a dung: 
beetle (Geotrupes typheus). 
One pellet of Tawny Owl in the Essex Museum was perforated, 
when found, with six or eight borings of a living beetle, 
Trichopteryx sp., a creature which usually occurs in hot-beds, 
haystack refuse, etc. ; no doubt the warm moist pellet, freshly 
ejected, was an attraction ! 
TENGMALM’S OWL. 
It is recorded that the food of this owl includes remains of 
Eliomys quercinus in pellets.47— 
42 Zoologist, 1899, p. 121. Harting, in his edn. cf White’s Selborne, p. 178. 
43 Zoologist, 1873, p. ee Board of Agriculture, Leaflet No. 42. 
44 Zoologist, 1904, p. 
45 Natural History of Selborne, p. 40. 
46 Zoologist, 1884, p. 100 - ibid. 1912, PP.293-297 5 ibid. 1913, p. 170 ; ibid, 1881, p. 3143 
ibid, 1865, ‘p. 9653; tbid. 1849, P. 2478, Millais’ Mammals of Great Britain and ‘Ireland, 
1905, p. 196. Harting, in his edition of White’s Selborne, p. 178. 
47 Witherby’s Practical Handbook of British Birds, vol. 2, 1920, p. 73. 
