INSTINCTS OF BIRDS. 256 



objects of superstitious dread or veneration, and 

 what naultitudes, even in this enlightened age 

 and country, are sacrificed annually to mistaken 

 notions of their mischievous properties, reason 

 and humanity are alike shocked; and we deeply 

 deplore the prevalence of errors, which the zea- 

 lous promulgation of more correct ideas and 

 liberal sentiments can alone effectually remedy. 



That useful bird, the white owl, which, on 

 account of the great number of mice it destroys, 

 ought to be carefully protected by the farmer, is 

 frequently looked upon with terror as a fore- 

 runner of death, which it is supposed to an- 

 nounce by its loud and dissonant screams; 

 and a small coleopterous insect, the Anobium 

 tessellatum of entomologists, has obtained the 

 appellation of death-watch, from a fancied con- 

 nexion between the ticking sound it produces, 

 and that awful event. The raven and magpie 

 are imagined, by persons of weak intellects and 

 timid dispositions, to prognosticate evil, and this 

 notion has been extended and perpetuated by 

 the allusions made to it in numerous legendary 

 tales, and in the writings of our poets. To take 

 the life of the swallow or martin, or to disturb 

 their nests, is regarded as an unlucky event, 

 portending disaster to the unfeeling aggressor; 

 and the redbreast and wren owe much of their 



