rity. Young turkeys, and game of every kind, are victims to his ferocity. In size this species is nearly as large as the preceding; and the general style of colouring is very similar, the upper parts being waved and mottled with black and brownish red, a tinge of gray prevailing on the ground of the lower part of the back; throat pure white; the rest of the under surface is marked by innumerable narrow transverse dusky bars on a reddish ground colour, thinly interspersed with white; face brown, with a margin of black; beak and claws black; iris bright orange. The nest is generally placed in the fork of a tall tree, and built of sticks, lined with dry leaves and feathers: sometimes, however, it is situated in a hollow tree or crevice among rocks. The eggs are dull white, and three or four in number. During the rearing of the young, the parents are active in supplying their carnivorous appetite, and consequently make sad havoc among the farmer's broods. Audubon says that he has known a settler's farm to have been stripped by one of these birds of the whole of its poultry.

To the genus Otus, Cuv. belong two beautiful owls, the long-eared and the short-eared, both natives of Europe and of North America, as well as of the northern portions of the continent of Africa. The genus Otus is characterized by the elongated egrets or plumes on the head, by the extent of the conch of the ear, with a valvular lid or operculum, and by feathered tarsi.

The LONG-EARED OWL, (Otus vulgaris, Strix Otus, LIN.) is common to both continents, and by no means unfrequent in the northern parts of the British isles. Except in size, it has much resemblance to the Great Eagle Owl, (Bubo maximus,) and, like that bird, loves the deep solitudes of woods and forests. It is generally found occupying the nest of the crow or magpie; and Wilson observes that its manners are the same in America as in Europe, having on one occasion discovered a nest of the night heron, (Ardea nyticorax,) the possession of which had been usurped by a pair of these

marauders, though probably without further injury to the rightful tenants, as there were numbers of night herons' nests not only on the trees around, but there was actually one on the same tree, all peaceably occupied by their true proprietors. The length of the Long-eared Owl is about fourteen or fifteen inches. The plumage of the upper surface is brown rufous and whitish, intermingled most beautifully together; of the under, an intermingling of rusty, cream, black, and white, with large arrow-heads of black from the chest to the thighs, which are plain rufous.

The SHORT-EARED OWL, (Otus Ulula, Strix brachyotus, LATH.) is one of our winter visitants, arriving with the woodcock in October, and retiring in March. It is generally associated in small flocks, and prefers the ground, upon which it is said to build, and where it is usually found, especially in marshy districts covered with tall reeds and grasses. In this situation, says Latham, it is supposed to be in search "after reptiles for food, as also mice; and in some places which have been infested with the latter, the owls have collected in large troops and attacked the depredators to their utter extermination." In Lincolnshire it pays an annual visit to the fens, attracted by the mice which there abound, and also in similar districts; and it has been often observed that when those little depredators are numerous, the owls appear in like proportion. "In the year 1580, at Hallowtide, an army of mice so overrun the marshes near South Minster that they eat up the grass to the very roots; but at length a great number of strange painted owls came and devoured all the mice. The like happened in Essex in 1648." Dale Harwich, App. 397.-Col. Montagu knew an instance of a similar nature a few years since at Bridgewater; and Bewick states, that twenty-eight of these birds have been found in a turnip-field exploring the ground for mice. In Holland it appears in great numbers often as early as September, passing down from the high northern latitudes, where it takes up its summer abode and rears its young. In the United States it is migratory as with us, one of its

summer retreats being the wild swampy woodlands along the coast of Labrador. In dark and cloudy weather it is often invited to bestir itself from its repose, taking short flights, and then settling among the grass, or on some slight elevation, at the same time erecting the two small feathers which constitute its egrets, and which are usually not to be perceived, and indeed can scarcely be distinguished by examination from the rest of the plumage of the head.

In size it is as large as the former species, being fourteen or fifteen inches in length. The feathers of the upper surface are of a blackish brown, each having a yellowish rufous margin; the tail is of the latter colour, with brown bars; the under surface a pale yellowish, with dark brown longitudinal dashes.

The two most common English owls are the Wood or Tawny Owl, and the Barn Owl. In both the egrets, or plumelets, are wanting. Cuvier assigns them as the exemplars of two separate genera.

The WOOD OWL, (Syrnium Aluco, SAVIG.) is the well known prowler of our woods and forests, where its hooting may be heard, as nightfall renders it animated and lively, while the rest of the feathered race are reposing to sleep. It may then be seen gliding on noiseless wings down the avenues and among the trees, now wheeling around, now sweeping to the ground, as some stir among the herbage or rustling among the scattered leaves attracts its eager notice. Moles, bats, mice, rats, and frogs, are its chief subsistence; and in search of these it hunts with great assiduity. During the day it sits in its secret retirement, the hollow of an age-worn tree, or bower amidst the mass of ivy which loads some giant of the wood, waiting till evening shall restore its congenial twilight. It builds in holes of trees, or takes up with a deserted crow's nest. The eggs are whitish, and generally five in number. The young are carefully supplied with abundance of food; and the collections of rejected bones in old trees which have served as owl nurseries for successive years are often discovered to the no small astonishment of the woodman,

whose axe and saw have broken up the long-maintained establishment. The general colour of the species is tawny yellow, the upper surface being undulated with dusky bars, each feather having a streak of black down the shaft; a row of large white spots stretches across the scapularies and wing-coverts. Under surface, pale tawny, with longitudinal streaks of brown. Length fourteen inches. The genus Syrnium, distinguished like the following (namely the restricted genus Strix) by the absence of egrets, has been separated from it in consequence of the diminished volume of the organs of earing, the concha being reduced to a small oval cavity, whereas in the latter it is greatly developed and covered by a valve.

To the genus Strix belongs the most familiar example of its race, the COMMON BARN OWL, (Strix flammea, LIN.) a bird with which the reader no doubt is acquainted. This elegant species is extensively spread throughout Europe, Asia, and America, and is common in our own island, where it is one of the most useful, though perhaps one of the most persecuted, of the feathered race. An indweller of the farmer's barn, this aerial wanderer of the night destroys more of those little pests, the mice, than any cat which enjoys the full and free immunities and privileges of the place. "When it has young," says Waterton, "it will bring a mouse to the nest every twelve or fifteen minutes; that is, during the evening and night: nor are rats and bats safe from its attacks. "If," says the writer just alluded to," this useful bird caught its food by day instead of hunting for it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice, and it would be protected and encouraged every where." The farmer, however, from ignorant superstition, is often its greatest enemy, and if his pigeon loft becomes thinned, or his young broods suffer diminution, ascribes the depredation to the poor owl instead of the rat. "Formerly I could get very few young pigeons till the rats were excluded effectually from the dovecot; since that took place it has produced a great abundance every year, though the Barn Owls frequent it and are encouraged all

around it

.....

"and the Barn Owl is not looked upon

as a bad or even suspicious character by the inhabitants In fact, this silent-winged bird has been

of the dovecot."

known to breed in a tenanted pigeon loft without producing the least alarm. One of the contributors to the Mag. of Nat. Hist, vol. v. p. 727, after stating that he