BIRD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS 129
 Short-Eared Owl.
Pellets of this bird picked up close to the nest contained
bones and fur of water vole42, field mice43, shrews, brown rat,
small warbler.44
Tawny Owl.
That close observer of birds, Gilbert White, so long ago as
1788 recorded that this bird casts pellets. He says: "Having
some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts
up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds, in pellets, after the
manner of hawks."45
Since Gilbert White's day, numerous observers have col-
lected and noted the contents of the castings of this owl. The
results of their investigations prove that the pellets include
remains of:—
Brown Rat Rabbit fur
House Mouse Stoat
Field Vole Squirrel
Long-tailed Field Mouse Beetles (Carabus granulatus,
Bank Vole Dytiscus marginalis, Silpha rugosa,
Common Shrew Harpalus] sp., Geotrupes ster-
Mole corarius, etc.46
Small birds
Pellets of Tawny Owl in the Essex Museum collection contain
mammalian fur, jaws and other bones of both mus and field vole,
the pelvis with caudal vertebra, and a rear tibia and fibula, of a
mole, sterna of small birds, and thoraces and elytra of a dung
beetle (Geotrupes typhaeus).
One pellet of Tawny Owl in the Essex Museum was perforated,
when found, with six or eight borings of a living beetle,
Trichopteryx sp., a creature which usually occurs in hot-beds,
haystack refuse, etc.; no doubt the warm moist pellet, freshly
ejected, was an attraction!
Tengmalm's Owl.
It is recorded that the food of this owl includes remains of
Eliomys quercinus in pellets.47
42 Zoologist, 1899, p. 121. Harting, in his edn. cf White's Selborne, p. 178.
43 Zoologist, 1873, p. 3465. Board of Agriculture, Leaflet No. 42.
44 Zoologist, 1904, p. 87.
4 5 Natural History of Selborne, p. 40.
46 Zoologist, 1884, p. 100; ibid. 1912, pp.293-297 ; ibid. 1913, p. 170; ibid. 1881, p. 314;
ibid. 1865, p. 9653; ibid, 1849, p. 2478. Millais' Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland,
1905, p. 196. Harting, in his edition cf White's Selborne, p. r78.
47 Witherby's Practical Handbook of British Birds, vol. 2, 1920, p. 73.