However, neither with the barn owl nor with man has the species-maker had his own way. Ornithologists recognise but one barn owl. This bird, which is frequently called the screech owl, is delightfully easy to describe. Everybody knows an owl when he sees one; but stay, I forgot the German Professor, mentioned by Mr. Bosworth Smith, who held up in triumph the owl which he had shot, saying: “Zee, I have shot von schnipe mit einem face Push cat.” Let me therefore say it is easy enough for the average man to recognise an owl, but it is quite another matter when it comes to “spotting” the species to which an individual happens to belong. As a rule the family likeness is so strong as to overshadow specific differences. The barn owl, however, differs from all others in that it has a long, thin face. Take any common or garden owl, and you will observe that it has a round, plum-pudding-like head. Place that owl before one of those mirrors which make everything look long and thin, and you will see in the glass a very fair representation of the barn owl. The face of this owl, when it is awake, is heart-shaped; when the bird is asleep it is as long as that of a junior Madras Civil Servant as he looks over the Civil List. Whether awake or asleep, the bird has an uncanny, half-human look. It is innocent of the “ears” or “horns” which form so conspicuous a feature of some owls. In passing, I may say that those horn-like tufts of feathers have no connection with the well-developed auditory organ of the owl.

The barn owl’s face is white, as is its lower plumage, hence it is popularly known in England as the white owl. The back and upper plumage are pale grey. The tail is buff, and there is a good deal of buff scattered about the rest of the plumage; it is on this account that the bird is called flammea.

The barn owl is, I believe, common in all parts of India, but it is not often seen owing to its strictly nocturnal habits. It ventures not forth into the dazzling light of day as does that noisy little clown, the spotted owlet (Athene brama). Should it happen to be abroad in daylight the crows make its life a burden. Friend Corvus is a very conservative individual. He sets his face steadfastly against any addition to the local fauna. As he seldom or never sees the barn owl, he does not include it among the birds of his locality; so that when one does show its face, the crows proceed to mob it. Their efforts are well seconded by the small fry among birds, who seem instinctively to dislike the whole owl tribe.

During the day the barn owl sleeps placidly in the interior of a decayed tree, or in a tomb, mosque, temple, or ruin, or even in the secluded verandah of a bungalow. The last place of abode is unsatisfactory from the point of view of the owl, for Indian servants display an antipathy towards it quite as great as that shown by the crows. They believe that the owls bring bad luck, and are in this respect not one whit more foolish than ignorant folk in other parts of the world. This useful and amusing bird is everywhere regarded with superstitious dread by the uneducated.

It lives almost exclusively on rats, mice, shrews, and other enemies of the farmer. And as an exceptional case it will take a young bird, which is usually a sparrow. Most people will agree that we can spare a few sparrows; nevertheless, that cruel idiot, the gamekeeper, classes the barn owl as vermin and shoots it whenever he has the chance. This is fairly often, owing to the confiding habits of the creature. It will enter a bungalow after rats or moths, and will sometimes terrify the timid sleeper by sitting on the end of his bed and screaming at him!

The owl is blessed with an appetite that would do credit to an alderman. Lord Lilford states that he saw “a young half-grown barn owl take down nine full-grown mice, one after another, until the tail of the ninth stuck out of his mouth, and in three hours’ time was crying for more.” Let me anticipate the captious critic by saying that it was the owl and not the tail of the ninth mouse that, like Oliver Twist, called for more. Moreover, the tail did not, as might be supposed, stick out because the bird was “full up inside.” The barn owl invariably swallows a mouse head first; it makes a mighty gulp, with the result that the whole of the mouse, except the tail, disappears. Thus the victim remains for a short time in order that the owl may enjoy the bonne bouche. Then the tail disappears suddenly, and the curtain is rung down on the first act of the tragedy. The second and third acts are like unto the first. The last act is not very polite, but it must be described in the interests of science. After an interval of a few hours the owl throws up, in the form of a pellet, the bones, fur, and other undigestible portions of his victims. This is, of course, very bad manners, but it is the inevitable result of bolting a victim whole. One vice, alas! leads to another.

Kingfishers, which swallow whole fish, likewise eject the bones. This habit of the owl has enabled zoologists to disprove the contention of the gamekeeper that the barn owl lives chiefly upon young pheasants. The bones found in these pellets are nearly all those of small rodents.

The screech owl, as its name implies, is not a great songster. It hisses, snores, and utters, during flight, blood-curdling screams, which doubtless account for its evil reputation. It lays roundish white eggs in a hole in a tree or other convenient cavity. Three, four, or six are laid, according to taste. I have never found the eggs in India, but they are, in England at any rate, laid, not in rapid succession, but at considerable intervals, so that one may find, side by side in a nest, eggs and young birds of various ages. I do not know whether the owl derives any benefit from this curious habit. It has been suggested that the wily creature makes the first nestling which hatches out do some of the incubating. Pranks of this kind are all very well when the nest is hidden away in a hole; they would not do in an open nest to which crows and other birds of that feather have access.