Now, the brown owl is a born destroyer of both
birds and mammals, and at times strangely savage. In two places very widely separated I have known pairs of these owls to destroy every discoverable nest in the immediate neighbour- hood. The Norfolk pair in question appeared from the evidence in the nest to live chiefly on rabbits, which not even the keeper grudged them. The sitting bird was shy and flew off the nest at the first warning of danger. On the, other hand, it is, I think, the one species of owl that will attack a; human being. A lady in Worcestershire, who had the misfortune to have a pair nesting in her garden, was forced, as she told me, more than once to cover up her face and fly to the house, so menacing was the attack ; and the same bird used to fly in the face of people approaching the garden. One of the pair finally lost its life in such an onset.
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