believe in ghosts, especially during its breeding-season, when it also emits a peculiar kind of languishing
: aa . J 5 ¢

sigh. Like the Scops and Barn Owls it has also the habit |
the roads bordered with trees near the places in

of pursuing by night, and especially in the
early morning, with loud cries all who may pass along
which it is searching for prey. I have several times been accomps . |
Near Chambery one followed me for half an hour, jumping

fired at it, at random, did not prevent its following

nied by this Owl along the pathways and

fields when going out shooting in the autumn.

i ie. oO TT r ~ ~
from tree to tree, and from house to house. Iwo shots |
me; on the contrary, they caused it to redouble its cries ; and in an instant afterwards I found myself accom-
panied by two others, which had doubtless been attracted thereby. The Little Owl seems to feed on small
. ae ° . eee ee i) lear ae a - araile A
birds, mice, young rats, large insects, especially grasshoppers and crickets, small reptiles, especia ly the
wall lizard (Lacerta muralis) and the spotted salamander (Salamandra maculosa),
A living one I had in 1847 was sensible of kindness, and would

little frogs, fish-spawn,

but rarely upon anything destitute of life. nis
allow me to rub its breast, back, and head, during which operation, which seemed to give it pleasure, it
sometimes lying on its back, at others on its breast.
, but prefer for that purpose the Scops Owl.”

remained as without life, The fowlers of our country
do not make use of this species to attract birds to their snares

Naumann, in his ‘ Vogel Deutscblands,’ confirms much of the preceding account of this bird, and says
that its true home is Central Europe, but that it is sometimes found in Sweden and Livonia. In Germany it
is a bird of passage, although a number remain there all the year; it is fond of the neighbourhood of man,
dwells on old town-walls, at a moderate height in church-steeples, and in the holes o
about the heads of pollarded willows, and sitting on old stone bridges and on the upright gravestones in
a bird of ill omen; during the nesting-season it

f trees, is often seen

church-yards, and is therefore considered by some people
often utters its discordant cries in the daytime, is of an untamable disposition, and in its flight differs from
that of other Owls in its being less easy and soundless, and of an undulating character like that of the W ood-
pecker and Hoopoe. It food consists of mice, bats, small birds (such as sparrows and larks, which it sur-
prises in their sleep), and insects; of mice it is said to eat as many as five or six at a meal, and it frequently
hoards up a supply of food, apparently in anticipation of inclement weather. As in Italy, it is used by the
bird-catchers as a decoy to attract the smaller birds towards the limed twigs. Old birds are sometimes em-
ployed for this purpose, but young ones are more easily tamed and answer better.

The Athene noctua is generally spread over central and southern Europe, and, if the Noctua bactriana
of Blyth be the same, Thibet and Affehanistan. I am aware that some ornithologists consider the Little
Owls of Eastern Europe and Northern Africa distinct, and have applied to them the specific names of
persica, meridionalis, and numida; but whether they are really different is still undecided ; if they are not,
then the range of this species is indeed an extensive one. Temminck says that it does not go further north
than the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, which proves that it is a southern species, Lord Lilford having
found it nesting in the ruins of Nicopolis, in Epirus, in March, and at Santa Quaranta in May.

I may remark that by Latham, Cuvier, and others this species has been treated of as the Striv passerina
of Linnzeus ; but this is an error, the bird characterized by the learned Swede under that name being a still
more diminutive one.

The sexes are alike in colour, and the young differ merely in being less bright, and by the redder tint of
the spots on the neck.

The Plate represents the bird, of the natural size, with the nearly fledged young, from a drawing by Mr.
Wolf. The little quadruped is the Short-tailed Field Mouse (A4rvicola agrestis).