The tawny, as well as the little owl, is I
think multiplying fast, not so much in the country as in the towns. The birds are so common in some of our less urban provincial towns, Oxford for example, that the early blackbirds and thrushes nesting in suburban gardens are almost all destroyed. The birds know their enemies, and one of the common Sights of the suburbs is the mobbing of the owls by small birds, whiCh on occasion scream with a poignancy suggestive of a mixture ofl fright and hatred. Where these owls nest is doubtful, They i often enough emerge from chimneys, but a chimney, ahiaYs liable to be used for its rightful purpose, is not a congenial place for a nest for any bird except, perhaps, the invincible jackdaw. The influence of towns on birds is of some economic importance. Sparrows have so multiplied that they migrate to harvestfields in devastating numbers, especially near Birmingham ; and poultry keepers begin_ to suffer from the excess of carrion crows now becoming thoroughly suburban,.
W. Bias TilomAs.
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