British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

Beak yellowish white; upper parts light tawny yellow minutely variegated with brown, grey, and white; face and lower plumage white, the feathers of the margin tipped with brown. Length fourteen inches; breadth nearly three feet. Eggs white.

Returning from our Summer-evening's walk at the pleasant time when twilight is deepening into night, when the Thrush has piped its last roundelay, and the Nightingale is gathering strength for a flesh flood of melody, a sudden exclamation from our companion 'What was that?' compels us to look in the direction pointed at just in time to catch a glimpse of a phantom-like body disappearing behind the hedge-row. But that the air is still, we might have imagined it to be a sheet of silver paper wafted along by the wind, so lightly and noiselessly did it pass on. We know, however, that a pair of Barn Owls have appropriated these hunting-grounds, and that this is their time of sallying forth; we are aware, too, how stealthily they fly along the lanes, dipping behind the trees, searching round the hay-stacks, skimming over the stubble, and all with an absence of sound that scarcely belongs to moving life. Yet, though by no means slow of flight, the Barn Owl can scarcely be said to cleave the air; rather, it fans its way onwards with its down-fringed wings, and the air, thus softly treated, quietly yields to the gentle force, and retires without murmur to allow it a passage. Not without meaning is this silence preserved. The nimble little animals that constitute the chase, are quick-sighted and sharp of hearing, but the pursuer gives no notice of his approach, and they know not their doom till they feel the inevitable talons in their sides. The victim secured, silence is no longer necessary. The successful hunter lifts up his voice in a sound of triumph, repairs to the nearest tree to regale himself on his prize, and, for a few minutes—that is, until the chase is resumed—utters his loud weird shriek again and again. In the morning, the Owl will retire to his private cell and will spend the day perched on end, dozing and digesting as long as the sunlight is too powerful for his large and sensitive eyes. Peep in on him in his privacy, and he will stretch out or move from side to side his grotesque head, ruffling his feathers, and hissing as though your performance were worthy of all condemnation. Yet he is a very handsome and most amusing bird, more worthy of being domesticated as a pet than many others held in high repute. Taken young from the nest, he is soon on familiar terms with his owner, recognizes him by a flapping of wings and a hiss whenever he approaches, clearing his premises of mice, and showing no signs of pining at the restriction placed on his liberty. Give him a bird, and he will soon show that, though contented with mice, he quite appreciates more refined fare. Grasping the body with his talons, he deliberately plucks off all the large feathers with his beak, tears off the head, and swallows it at one gulp, and then proceeds to devour the rest piece-meal. In a wild state his food consists mainly of mice, which he swallows whole, beetles, and sometimes fish, which he catches by pouncing on them in the water.

The service which the Barn Owl renders to the agriculturist, by its consumption of rats and mice, must be exceedingly great, yet it is little appreciated. "When it has young", says Mr. Waterton, "it will bring a mouse to the nest every twelve or fifteen minutes. But in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the Owl on the old gateway was cleared out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets."

The plumage of the Barn Owl is remarkable for its softness, its delicacy of pencilling on the upper parts and its snowy whiteness below. Its face is perfectly heart-shaped during life, but when the animal is dead becomes circular. The female is slightly larger than her mate, and her colours are somewhat darker. The nest of the Barn Owl is a rude structure placed in the bird's daily haunt. The eggs vary in number, and the bird lays them at different periods, each egg after the first being hatched (partially at least) by the heat of the young birds already in being. That this is always the case it would not be safe to assert, but that it is so sometimes there can be no doubt. The young birds are ravenous eaters and proverbially ugly; when craving food they make a noise resembling a snore. The Barn or White Owl is said to be the most generally diffused of all the tribe, being found in almost all latitudes of both hemispheres, and it appears to be everywhere an object of terror to the ignorant. A bird of the night, the time when evil deeds are done, it bespeaks for itself an evil reputation; making ruins and hollow trees its resort, it becomes associated with the gloomiest legends; uttering its discordant note during the hours of darkness, it is rarely heard save by the benighted traveller, or by the weary watcher at the bed of the sick and dying; and who more susceptible of alarming impressions than these? It is therefore scarcely surprising that the common incident of a Screech-Owl being attracted by a solitary midnight taper to flutter against the window of a sick room, and there to utter its melancholy wail, should for a time shake the faith of the watcher, and, when repeated with the customary exaggerations, should obtain for the poor harmless mouser the unmerited title of 'harbinger of death'.

Sub-Family SYRNIINÆ

LONG-EARED OWL
ASIO ÓTUS

Beak black; iris orange yellow; egrets very long, composed of eight or ten black feathers, edged with yellow and white; upper parts reddish yellow, mottled with brown and grey; lower parts lighter, with oblong streaks of deep brown. Length fifteen inches; breadth thirty-eight inches. Eggs white.

Though not among the most frequent of the English Owls, this species occurs in most of the wooded parts of England and Ireland, as indeed it does in nearly all parts of the world where woods are to be found. It is more common than is usually supposed in France, where it unites in its own person all the malpractises which have been popularly ascribed to the whole tribe of Owls. It is there said to be held in great detestation by all the rest of the feathered tribe; a fact which is turned to good account by the bird-catcher, who, having set his traps and limed twigs, conceals himself in the neighbourhood and imitates the note of this Owl. The little birds, impelled by rage or fear, or a silly combination of both, assemble for the purpose of mobbing the common enemy. In their anxiety to discern the object of their abhorrence, they fall one after another into the snare, and become the prey of the fowler. The Long-eared Owl is not altogether undeserving of the persecution which is thus intended for her, her principal food being field-mice, but also such little birds as she can surprise when asleep. In fact, she respects neither the person nor the property of her neighbours, making her home in the old nests of large birds and squirrels, and appropriating, as food for herself and her voracious young, the carcases of any that she finds herself strong enough to master and kill.

The cry of this bird is only occasionally uttered—a sort of barking noise. The note of the young bird is a loud mewing and seems to be intended as a petition to its parents for a supply of food. A writer in the Zoologist[28] who has had many opportunities of observing this species in its native haunts, says that it does not confine its flight entirely to the darker hours, as he has met with it in the woods sailing quickly along, as if hawking, on a bright summer day. It is curious to observe, he says, how flat they invariably make their nests, so much so, that it is difficult to conceive how the eggs retain their position, even in a slight wind, when the parent bird leaves them. The eggs are four to six in number, and there are grounds for supposing that the female bird begins to sit as soon as she has laid her first egg.

[1] Vol. ii. p. 562.