SYRNIUM ALUCO

Tawny or Brown Owl.

Strix aluco, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. pe loz

stridula, Id. ibid. p. 133.

Syrnium ululans, Savig. Desc. de ’Egypt, pt. i. p. 112.
stridulum, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xiii. pt. ii. p. 62.
aluco, Cuv. Régn. Anim., 2nd edit. tom. i. D543.

Ulula stridula, Selby, Ill. Brit. Orn., vol. i. Pel02.

Aluco stridulus, Macgill. Desc. of Rap. Birds of Gt. Brit., p.: 367,

Ulula aluco, Macgill. Hist. of Brit. Birds, vol. iii. p. 438.

 

 

Tuar the Brown Owl has many persecutors and but few friends is quite certain, his destructive propensities,
particularly during the breeding-season, having called down upon him the maledictions of the game-preserver
and the keeper; but this one-sided Judgment is just the ‘Farmer and the Rook’ over again, no consideration
for the good he effects being taken into the account. Were it possible for a pair of Brown Owls to produce
a yearly record of the number of nocturnal moles, Norway rats, and destructive field-mice they have
destroyed, against a similar account of what has been done in this way by any five keepers, I question
whether the balance would not be in favour of the Owls. Let us remember that the whole face of our
country is gradually changing—woodland districts giving place to arable lands; and that the situations
favourable to the habits of this bird are becoming more and more circumscribed, and consequently that
it is to our interest to protect, rather than to extirpate, the remnant of 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 hoot in the twilight, or 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-hoots of this bird have a great charm, and, in my opinion,

amply compensate for the loss of the few leverets it may take home to its craving young during the months of

April and May. I believe the brown rat to be far more destructive to leverets and young pheasants than this
Owl ever can be. Let the preserver of game, then, bear this in mind, and not raise his gun at every Owl that
blindly tumbles out of a tree when the covers are shot over: 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 in favour of the Brown Owl, I must now proceed to speak more particularly of its
habits and economy, and especially of its varied diet. It not only kills the smaller quadrupeds above
enumerated, but its prowling habit leads it to pounce, during the stillness of the night, upon sleeping Black-
birds, Thrushes, or any other species it can master ; and, strange as 1t may appear, it also hunts the edges
of pools and rivers and captures living fish; in support of which latter assertion, I shall quote some oe
which have appeared in works on natural history and in the daily Devspane I Te on
greater portion of a note on the subject, which appeared in the ‘ Magazine of ae a a :
year 1828, p. 179 :—‘ Probably it may not be generally known to naturalists aide t . ee ui
Owl is in the habit, occasionally at least, of feeding its young with live fish—a fact which I have ascer-
tained beyond doubt. Some years since, several young Owls were taken Hn 1 nie a ae
a yew tree in the rectory-garden here; in this situation the parent birds repeatedly wes : n io
fish, Bull-heads (Cottws Gobio) and Loach (Codes barbatula), which bad ee te err aa a
neighbouring brook, in which these species abound. Since the above ane a ae io
occasion found the same fish, whole or in fragments, lying under the trees in which I have obs

young Owls to perch after they have left te
(Rev. W. T. Bree, Allesley Rectory, near Coventry.)

» Magazine, ‘is ioned in Jennings’s ‘ Orni-
J. M., on the same page of the Magazine, “1s ment ‘ : !
who was employed to watch the fish-pond in

. . ”
nest, and where the old birds were accustomed to feed them.
by

«This circumstance,” says
thologia,’ and corroborates a declaration made by a Liban: old land silver she! Had beni rameeat + nA
the flower-garden at Bulstrode about fifty years ago. The gold and s1 é ;
Duchess Margaret of Portland, being a lady of distinguished oe See eae ee
n poached, ordered the gardener, Mr. ghew, o employ 7 cn i
m alight on the edge of the pond, and there waiting the

The Common Brown Owls were the robbers ; at least,

or every curious object of natural history,

suspecting the pond had bee |
watchmen detected the robbers, when they saw t .
approach of the fish, captured and devoured them! iat
so the men reported, but they were not ee - a ,ppeared in the ‘Times’ of October 29, 1858 :-—
j ied fr ‘Bath Journal, ¢ é ‘
The following paragraph, copied from the ;

«© 4n Owl’s Larder.—A few days since

roi ti . et ? te?
an Owl’s nest was taken upon the farm of Mr. Parker, Burnett’s
Cc