Owls, Trout and Beetles It surprised many enemies of that
alien species. to learn that the little Spanish owl lived principally upon beetles. It certainly surprised me to find that some trout had an exactly similar taste. One half-pounder caught last week in a Cumberland beck was well-stuffed with the relics of a large black beetle, several smaller beetles and one cockchafer. A smaller fish from the same beck seems to have lived of late solely on house-flies. How these came to be on or under the water I do not know; but the waterfalls are so tumultuous that they may be expected to prove the ruin of flying as well as crawling insects. To return to the little owl, I still think that the strangest existing record of bird behaviour is Sir George Courthope's discovery that even when the little owl killed young pheasants it was for the sole purpose of using them as bait for burying beetles! Our '6,000 or so sorts of beetle have their uses.
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