The white-tailed sea eagles bred upon the rocks of a towering limestone escarpment overlooking a recess of the sea, and fed upon gulls and terns. The vast peat mosses which stretched away for miles below them abounded with hares and grouse, and among these the birds made devastation. Year after year they carried off their young from the same cliffs, and now return only at rare intervals when storm driven. The peregrines have the eagles' eyrie, and are only eagles in miniature. The sea-fowl form their food in summer, as do wild ducks in winter. At this latter season the osprey or "fish-hawk" comes to the bay and the still mountain tarns, adding wildness to the scenes which his congeners have left never to return. Those who have recently advocated a close time for owls have, fortunately, been forestalled by legislation. The Act of 1881 affords protection to all wild birds during the breeding season, and, although exemption is allowed in favour of owners and occupiers of land, owls, being included in the schedule, may not be destroyed even by them or with their authority. It was a wise step that granted this double protection, for of all birds, from the farmers' standpoint, owls are the most useful. These birds hunt silently and in the night, and are nothing short of lynx-eyed cats with wings. The benefit they confer upon agriculturists is most incalculable, which is susceptible of proof. It is well known that owls hunt by night, but it may be less a matter of common knowledge that, like other birds of prey, they return by the mouth the hard indigestible parts of their food in the form of elongated pellets. These are found in considerable quantities about the birds' haunts, and an examination of them reveals the fact that owls prey upon a number of predacious creatures the destruction of which is directly beneficial to man. Of course, the evidence gained in this way is infallible, and to show to what extent owls assist in preserving the balance of nature, it may be mentioned that seven hundred pellets examined yielded the remains of sixteen bats, three rats, two hundred and thirty-seven mice, six hundred and ninety-three voles, one thousand five hundred and ninety shrews, and twenty-two birds. These truly remarkable results were obtained from the common barn-owl, and the remains of the twenty-two birds consisted of nineteen sparrows, one greenfinch, and two swifts. The tawny and long-eared owls of our woodlands are also mighty hunters, and an examination of their pellets showed equally interesting results. It must be remembered in this connection that Britain is essentially an agricultural country, and that if its fauna is a diminutive one it is not less formidable. We have ten tiny field creatures constituting an army in themselves, which if not kept under would quickly devastate our fields. These ten species consist of four mice, three voles, and three shrews. Individually, so