186 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



The Jews believe that their cry causes the death of 

 young children; so, in order to prevent this, they pour 

 a vessel of water out into the courtyard every time they 

 hear the cry of one of these owls, the idea being that 

 thus they will distract the bird's attention, and the 

 infant will escape the intended malice. The Arabs be- 

 lieve these owls can cause all kinds of evil to old as 

 well as young, but they content themselves with cursing 

 the bird whenever it is seen or heard. The Moham- 

 medans say : "When these birds cry they are only curs- 

 ing in their own language ; but their malediction is harm- 

 less unless they know the name of the individual to 

 whom they wish evil, or unless they have the malignity 

 to point out that person when passing him. As the Devil 

 sleeps but little when there is evil work to be done, he 

 would infallibly execute the commands of his favorite, 

 if one did not, by cursing him, thus guard against the 

 power of that enemy." 



It is a pleasure to have this long record of misde- 

 meanors and diabolism relieved by at least one good deed 

 in history. Having read in Watters's 57 curious little 

 volume that the Tartars attribute to the barn-owl the 

 saving of the life of their great commander Genghis 

 Khan, I searched far and wide for the particulars of what 

 seemed likely to be an entertaining incident, and at last 

 I came upon the facts in the eleventh volume of Purchase 

 His Pilgrims. It appears that Changius Can, as the old 

 historian spells it, had his horse shot under him in a 

 certain fight that was going against him, and he ran and 

 hid in a thicket of shrubs — which is a novel view of the 

 "Tartar Terror." "Whither, when the enemies were 

 returned, with purpose to spoil the dead Carkass, and to 

 seek out such as were hidden, it happened that an Owle 



