When Asnapper had more food than he could consume at one meal he would hide the rest, taking pains to secrete his choice morsels in some dark corner where he thought we could not see them. His soft blue eyes used to look very roguish as he peered round to see if we were watching him; those eyes, by the way, changed to a rich dark brown as he grew older, and would be, I fancy quite black when full grown.
I have several times observed a brown owl flying quite late in the evening closely pursued by enraged blackbirds screaming their loudest notes of anger and fear, and I gather from this that the owl is apt to prey upon small birds and possibly robs their nests of eggs or young fledglings.
Several writers assert that this bird also feeds on fish, being able to catch those swimming near the surface. There can be no doubt of the extreme value of owls in reducing the number of rats and mice, and it is to be hoped that landowners, in their own interest, if for no better motive, will take pains to instruct their gamekeepers to protect such useful allies to the farmer and gardener. I met with an amusing instance of the value of the owl as a mouser when staying at a farmhouse in Surrey. The farmer’s daughter told me her brother had just discovered “a 'howl’s’ nest in the pigeon coo,” and going up a ladder to examine it more closely had found two eggs in the nest, and ranged around it were fourteen dead mice! If that was the result of one evening’s foraging, we need no other proof that owls are worthy of encouragement and protection.
This anecdote relates to a barn owl, which may well be called the “farmer’s friend,” for it delights to roost in barns and outbuildings, where it can find plenty of mice, its favourite food, and on that account it should meet with a kind welcome instead of being trapped and shot and hung up to decorate the end of some outhouse, where I often grieve to see it, in company with the equally useful little kestrel and other hawks.
ASNAPPER.
The brown owl has very different tastes as to its home, preferring a hollow tree in some secluded wood far away from human dwellings, although, from Mr. Waterton’s experience, it will sometimes fly into houses in the dusk of evening. He says: “This pretty aërial wanderer of the night often comes into my room, and after flitting to and fro on wing so soft and silent that he is scarcely heard, he takes his departure from the same window at which he entered.” Mr. Waterton suggests that these birds may be encouraged to settle in our woods; if holes are made in pollard-trees that are slightly decayed, the brown owls will readily adopt them as nesting-places.
I have not as yet heard Asnapper make any sound except the characteristic snap of his beak, and a low whining cry of eager pleasure at sight of his accustomed food. We are very familiar with the loud, melancholy hoot of his kith and kin which we frequently hear at intervals during the night in the gardens and woods around the house, and Asnapper will join in the chorus, for, as soon as he can feed himself, we shall bid him an affectionate farewell, and have the pleasure of seeing him spread his broad wings and sail away to his native woods.
WILLOW-WRENS.
“The least and last of things