NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY, OR OWLS. 113 



i3 or 4 first quills. Thus provided, like the insidious 

 assassin, with a noiseless and easy approach, sallying out 

 under cover of the approaching shades of night, sacred 

 to repose, he snatches the dormant bird from its perch, 

 and turns the music of the grove into wailing and 

 silence, consonant with his own malignant destiny and 

 boding cries. Like the Hawks, his powerful talons are 

 the arms with which he makes the fatal sweep amongst 

 his prey ; it is only when greatly pressed by hunger that 

 he deigns to feed on dead animals ; and his drink is 

 rarely ever other than the blood of his victims, and their 

 recent juices. The bones, hair, feathers, and hard parts, 

 not digestible in the membraneous stomach with which 

 alone he is provided, are brought up, and ejected by the 

 mouth, in the form of pellets or little balls. In anciently 

 settled countries, frugal of labor, they content themselves 

 to nest in old towers and ruins, sometimes in the holes 

 of hollow trees, or the deserted nests of other large birds ; 

 in this country, decayed trees, as well as the fissures 

 of rocks, and retired barns, are chosen for this purpose ; 

 their eggs are from 2 to 6. Their moult takes place 

 only once in the year ; and the striking disparities of 

 plumage which occur among the Hawks, is generally 

 unknown among the Owls. The young, however, before 

 their first moult, have usually a darker face than the 

 adult, thus appearing as it were masked ; but after 

 this period they no longer differ from the old. The 

 species are spread all over the northern and temperate 

 parts of the globe, and some are common even to both 

 hemispheres. 



10* 



