A CONTRAST IN Owls.
In the hollows of neighbouring trees on a Norfolk estate two pairs of owls nested this year, one, the little Spanish owl, the other the tawny or brown owl. They illustrated the rather curious psychology of the two species. The little owl, though very cunning in avoidance of an enemy with a gun, is also strangely tame. It 'makes a charming pet, and can be trained, to quote one instance, to hawk black betties from the wrist, like any falcon It is singularly fearless. In this Norfolk tree the sitting bird refused to be driven from her nest, which was in a hollow limb with two openings. She was shoved from one end by a stick, but yielded only a foot or so ; and it needed several minutes of persistent harrying before she emerged from the bolt hole. The species is not in the first instance a cannibal, though it will kill young birds on occasion to attract beetles to the dead bodies.
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