SYRNIUM ALUCO.
Tawny or Brown Owl.
Stride akttv, Linn. Syst- N a t, tom. i- p. 132.
—— atrbiula, Id. ibid. p. ISA.
Syrnium ukUans, Savig. Deac. tie I’Egypt, pt. i. p. 112.
— sir ¡¡Mum. Steph. ConV of Shaw’s Gen- Z o o L , vol. xui. p t ii. p. (12.
— «face, Cuv. Regn. Anno., 2nd edit. tom. i. p. 343,
Uhtla atrtdnh, Selby, 111. Brit Or«., vol. i. p. 102.
Aluoi tthiulm, MacgiU. tVse of Rap. Birds o f Gt. Brit., p. 367;
VMa Vlacgifl. H V of Brit. Birds, vol. hi. p. 438.
T »*•.! the Brown Owl has many persecutors and but few friends is quite certain, his destructive propensities,
wirfinilnrh during tbe breediiig-season,¿wving called down upon him the maledictions o f the game-preserver
.. .;i tbe keeper!; but this one-sided judgment is ju st the ‘ Farmer and the Rook ’ over again, no consideration
> ■., the good he effects being taken into the account. Were it possible for a pair of Brown Owls to produce
a yearly record o f the number of nocturnal moles, Norway rats, and destructive field-mice they have
destroyed, against a similar account o f what has been done in this way by any five keepers, I question
whether the balance would not he in favour of the Owls. Let us remember that the whole face of our
country is gradually changing—woodland districts giving place to arable lan d s; and that the situations
favourable to the habits o f this bird are becoming more and more circumscribed, and consequently that
it is to our interest to protect, rather than to extirpate, the remnant o f the species which remains. Let
us then cherish the Brown Owl as.a bird designed for an especial purpose; let us still hear its hollow,
rolling boot in th e 1 twilight, o r listen to the challenge-note of the males—the only sound which breaks
the stillness of midnight in those woodland parts of the country where it still lingers. For myself, and
doubtless for many other persons, the hoo-hoo-boots of this bird have a great charm, and, in my opinion,
amply compensate for the loss o f the few leverets it may take home to its craving young during the months of
April and May. I believe the brown ra t to be far m ore destructive to leverets and young pheasants than this
Owl ever can he. Let the preserver o f game, then, bear this in mind, and not raise his gun a t every Owl that
blindly tumble* out of a tree when the covers are shot o v e r: if he mistake the Owl for a Woodcock, which
I have heard offered as an excuse, his destructive propensities and want of judgment are about upon a par.
Having said thus much iu favour of the Brown Owl, I must now proceed to speak more particularly of its
habits and economy, and especially o f its varied diet. It not only kills the smaller quadrupeds above
enumerated, but its prowling habit leads it to pounce, during th e stillness o f the night, upon sleeping Blackbirds,
Thrushes, o r any other species it can m aste r; and, strange as it may appear, it also hunts the edges
of pools and rivers nod captures living fish; in support o f which latter assertion, I shall quote some passages
which have appeared in works on natural history and in the daily newspapers. I commence with the
greater portion o f a note on the subject, which appeared in the ‘ Magazine o f Natural History ’ for the
year p. 179 —"Probably it may not be generally known to naturalists that the Common Brown
(hvl is in si :' hab*s occasionally at least, o f feeding its young with live fish— a fact which I have ascertained
bevo. Some years siuce, several youug Owls were taken from tbe nest, and placed in
a vew tree in the ng&wv-gardeu h e re ; in this situation the parent birds repeatedly brought them live
fish, Bulkheads ; i \ , . tiobio) and Loach (Cobiles barf/alula), which had doubtless been procured from the
neighbouring brook, a, which these species abound. Since the above period, I have on more than one
occasion found the w&t* tab, whole o r in fragments, lying under the trees in which I have observed the
young Owls to perch «hey have left the nest, and where the old birds were accustomed to feed them.'
(Rev. W. T. Bree, Alk^4t ' Heetory, near Coventry.)
“ This circumstance." ***# J . on the same page o f the Magazine, “ is mentioned in Jennings’» ‘ Or**i-
thologia,’ and corroborate* ■ declaration made by a labourer who was employed to watch the fish-pond in
the flower-garden at Rob ’; - a-.u t fifty years ago. The gold and silver fish had been- mwtrd; the
Duchess Margaret of Portland. o-v a lady o f distinguished taste for every curious object o f natural history,
suspecting the p*>«d had been mxvrhed, ordered the gardener, Mr. Agnew, to employ men to
watchuicn detected the robber*, when they saw them alight on the edge o f the pond, and
approach of the fc*h, captured ami devoured th em ! The Common Brown Owl* were ♦*
so the men reported, but they were not generally credited.”
The following purugraph, copied from the ‘ Bath Journal,’ appeared in the * Tunc* ■
“ d n Owl't Lar4er.~~ A few days since an Owl’s nest was taken upon the la*in of Mr. Parker, Burnetts