The barn owl is more common than the wood or brown owl. The former is snow white on its breast and under its wings. The wings themselves, and the back, made it one of our most beautiful birds. They are of an amber-yellow colour, shaded with ash gray, and streaked with small white and brown markings. The pinion feathers and the broad soft feathers of the tail are yellowy-white, barred with light brown. Most remarkable of all is the face, which is heart-shaped, surrounded by a line of gray and yellow featherlets standing out like a ruffle. The eyes are black, a contrast to the pure white of the down that surrounds them. In the summer evening he can be seen beating up the hedges, pouncing as he goes. When hungry, his capacity is enormous--nine or ten mice. He swallows the mice and small birds whole--the indigestible part being cast up later in the form of a grayish pellet. If a hollow tree, where these birds are likely to sleep during the day, be tapped fairly loudly, it will often drive its tenant into the light. Its exit will invariably be hailed by a chattering chorus of tomtits or finches, who will pursue it. In the bright sunlight the sight is dazzled, but in dull weather it would be able to see quite easily. A wind-blown copse crowns a hill a mile away from the park, and one day in summer I found the skeleton of a barn owl flung among the thorns. Of the dark eyes--each a wonderful instrument--nothing was left, only a little dust collected in the empty orbits. Ants and flies had long completed their work. The white of the breast feathers was turned a dull gray by the rain’s bedragglement; the muscles of the shoulder had withered, though the sinews were dry and silky. The feet were clenched as though the bird had died in agony after the shot had rung out and it sunk to the ground. An owl rarely dies immediately it is shot; it lies back, if badly hit, resting lightly on its downy wings and stares with a mournful anguish, as though puzzled, and conscious that this is farewell to its mate. Owls pair for life, and, like most birds, their lives are ideal. It seemed to me, regarding the skeleton, a sadness that all that was left of a beautiful bird was a wasted bundle of bones and feathers, flung among the thorns. _Woo-loo-woo-loo-woo-o-oo!_ the brown owl calls in the night. And while I am here on earth, let me be in the fields where I can see the bright stars, and dream as my birds of mystery pass in silence and alone. _1914._ ERNIE