The Barn Owl is common throughout Europe, known in Tartary, and rare in the United States of America. In England it is called the Barn Owl, the Church Owl, Gillihowlet, and Screech Owl; the last name is improperly applied, as it is believed not to hoot, though Sir William Jardine asserts that he has shot it in the act of hooting. To the screech superstition has annexed ideas of fatal portent; "but," says Charlotte Smith, "it has, of course, no more foreknowledge of approaching evil to man than the Lark: its cry is a signal to its absent mate." "If," says Mr. Waterton, "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 everywhere. It would be with us what the Ibis was with the Egyptians. When it has young, it will bring a mouse to the nest every twelve or fifteen minutes." Mr. Waterton saw his Barn Owl fly away with a rat which he had just shot; he also saw her drop perpendicularly into the water, and presently rise out of it with a fish in her claws, which she took to her nest. Birds and quadrupeds, and even fish, are the food of Owls, according to the size of the species. Hares, partridges, grouse, and even the turkey, are attacked by the larger Horned Owls of Europe and America; while mice, shrews, small birds, and crabs suffice for the inferior strength of the smaller Owls. Mr. Yarrell states that the Short-eared Owl is the only bird of prey in which he ever found the remains of a bat. William Bullock reports that a large Snowy Owl, wounded on the Isle of Baltoc, disgorged a young rabbit; and that one in his possession had in its stomach a sandpiper with its feathers entire. It preys on lemmings, hares, and birds, particularly the willow-grouse and ptarmigan. It is a dexterous fisher, grasping the fish with an instantaneous stroke of the foot as it sails along near the surface of the water, or sits on a stone in a shallow stream. It has been seen on the wing pursuing an American hare, making repeated strokes at the animal with its foot. In winter, when this Owl is fat, the Indians and white residents in the Fur Countries esteem it to be good eating; its flesh is delicately white. Small snakes are the common prey of this Owl during the daytime. And to show on what various kinds of food Owls subsist, Mr. Darwin states that a species that was killed among the islets of the Chonos Archipelago had its stomach full of good-sized crabs. Such are a few of the facts which attest the almost omnivorous appetite of the Owl.