The White Owl

The film shows a cuckoo caught in the act of laying an egg in the nest of two titlarks. The egg is hatched by the foster-mother, and she and her mate feed and tend the young cuckoo, even to the detriment of their own chicks.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the conflict between two colonies of wood ants joined by a piece of tiber laid across a moat at a zoological garden.

The pictures show how the ailanthus silkmoth and the red admiral spin silk and weave a cocoon, and the way in which the change from caterpillar to moth is affected.

Beneath the waves are mountains, plains and valleys full of life: here the conger, the octopus, and the wrasse hunt for food; shrimps and prawns act as scavengers; sea anemones and starfish decorate the seafloor, and the spider crab assumes protective colouring by covering its back with pebbles.

A sign of approaching winter - the frost catches the leaves which begin to fall.

These pictures show the marvellous industry of the Bee, the ingenuity it exercises in making its home, and the ordered programme of life that it appears to follow.

Short documentary film using innovative filming techniques to show how moulds grow and germinate.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the sexual elements of pollenation in Dandelion, Globe thistle, Daisy, Cornflower, Carline thistle and Everlastings.

Time lapse photography of the broad bean flower unfurling. Released in a silent (1929) and sound (1930) version.

The film shows the birth, life and reproduction of sweet peas, a familiar and well loved plant of British gardeners.

The world of fungi captured by micro-cinematography and time-lapse photography.

The Strangler shows the life history of dodder, from its earliest stage as a seedling, to its parasitic stage feeding off its host.

The life cycle of the rose aphid (Macrosiphum Roseus).

Short film showing (with limited accuracy) the life-cycle of myxomycetes.

Short documentary showing infusoria in a wine-glass.

The poppy flower in its psychedelic glory.

The breeding cycle of the bittern, the cryptically plumaged relative of the herons.

The nightingale and its song, its habitat, nest eggs and young.

Short, anthropomorphically-inclined documentary showing the life-cycle of the common newt.

A short documentary study of hops, barley and yeast, and how they interact.

Mosses are seen on walls, old roofs and in hedgerows.

The picture shows various kinds of birds in their natural environments, and in their natural colors, and at such close range that the very eyes of the little fledglings in the nest are easily discerned. Every feather seems distinct and the birds seem to be in such relief that it appears as though one could almost reach out and catch them.

A wildlife film with a difference: it has A Message for any humans in the house. "The squirrel in the tree, the fox below, the birds, insects, all know that a time of plenty will not last forever". Austerity-stricken wartime viewers can learn from their economical feeding habits. An entertaining hybrid of public information and natural history from the makers of wildlife series Secrets of Life. Released in the BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

The film takes us to the North of England to follow the migration of the black-headed gull down to London. There, the narrator asks viewers to "listen to their gossip", before demonstrating the bird’s flight in slow motion. We see a polecat feasting on gull eggs, and then a man collecting the eggs for human consumption, with the film telling us that they are considered a “delicacy” in London. Indeed, according to the British Trust for Ornithology, around 300,000 gull’s eggs were sold every year in Leadenhall Market in London during the 1930s, when London Visitors was made.

The nightingale and its song, its habitat, nest eggs and young.

The film shows a cuckoo caught in the act of laying an egg in the nest of two titlarks. The egg is hatched by the foster-mother, and she and her mate feed and tend the young cuckoo, even to the detriment of their own chicks.

History - and natural history - filmed on location in Selborne, East Hampshire. This unusual edition of the long-running series Secrets of Life tells the story of the village's famous son, Rev Gilbert White, whose 1789 book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne is a classic of natural history. The film follows in his footsteps, with camera rather than quill in hand, focusing on nature but also taking in views of the village and its human inhabitants. The ingenious close coverage of bird, reptile and other wildlife was the stock-in-trade of the filmmakers at Gaumont-British Instructional, producers of the series. Under the direction of the redoubtable Mary Field, the behind-screen talent here includes legendary 'cine-biologists' Percy Smith and Oliver Pike. A tribute by one generation of pioneering naturalists to another, it's a quietly moving film in spite of its clipped English reserve - or perhaps partly because of it.

The peculiar trait of the cuckoo, which tricks another bird into hatching her egg for her, is shown in color photography.