OWLS IN LONDON.
[To TEE EDITOR 01 THE " SPECPAPOR."] SIR,—I have read with much pleasure the article in the Spectator of January 29th on " Feathered Citizens." With regard to the owls, which the writer of the article cites as having deserted London, it may interest you to hear that two pairs of wood-owls have for some years nested in the old elms of this garden, which is within four miles of Charing Cross. In the summer one of the owls flew in at an open window at dusk, and eluded all attempts to capture
it; it was, unhappily, discovered next morning drowned in a bath which had been filled over night. Whether its mate still remains I am not sure, but two owls are frequently seen, and we hear them almost nightly. Only a few nights ago one' flapped against my window and hooted, attracted, perhaps, by my lamp, as I read late. Amongst the birds which come' daily for the food I throw out are a colony of jackdaws, which live in the same elms, starlings, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, chaffinches, and an occasional wagtail, while the great and blue tits quickly pick the inside from a cocoanut hung out for them. This they seem to prefer to a lump of suet, scarcely touching it while the cocoanut lasts. I like to imagine that the robins are the same pair which built their nest in the hall of this house when it was building last spring. The workmen, who daily fed the birds, removed the nest, quite with the robins' consent, to another place, as the work went on. This hole, however, evidently did not suit them as well as the first,. so they left that nest altogether, and built a new one in the outside wall, where they triumphantly brought up their- family.—I am, Sir, &c., BEATRICE E. THOMSON. 22 Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead, N.W., February 2nd.
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