FABLE AND FOLKLORE 181 



the Latin poets reveals the detestation and dread with 

 which owls were held among the Romans. Derogatory 

 references abound in books of the classical era, and 

 similar sentiments might be quoted from authors down 

 into medieval times. Even the elder Pliny, called a 

 naturalist, but really hardly more than a too credulous 

 compiler, condemns the tribe in very harsh words — 

 especially the big-horned species; yet he only reflected 

 the general belief that they were messengers of death, 

 whence everybody trembled if one was seen in the town 

 or alighted on any housetop. One luckless owl that 

 made a flying trip to the Capitol was caught and burnt, 

 and its ashes were cast into the Tiber. Twice Rome 

 underwent ceremonial purification on this account, 

 whence Butler's jibe in Hitdibras: 



The Roman senate, when within 



The city walls an owl was seen, 



Did cause their clergy with lustrations 



(Our synod calls humiliations) 



The round-faced prodigy t' avert 



From doing town and country hurt. 



The deaths of several Roman emperors, among them 

 Valentinian and Commodus Antoninus, were presaged 

 by owls alighting on their residences, and it is recorded 

 that before the death of the great Augustus an owl sang 

 on the Curia. 



In central India the owl is now generally regarded as 

 a bird of ill omen. "If one happens to perch on the 

 house of a native, it is a sign that one of his household 

 will die, or some other misfortune befall him within a 

 year. This can only be averted by giving the house or its 

 value in money to the Brahmins, or making extraordi- 

 nary peace-offering to the gods." It is easy to calculate 



