<GG 



OF THE OWLS IN GENERAL. 



for its song, which it utters every morning and evening, and like the 

 Nightingale, not uncommonly all the night through. It sings in a 

 loud tone f<jr more than a minute, and after an interval begins anew. 

 During its song it is so regardless of its own safety, that any one 

 may appn^ach very near to it: but at other times it is suspicious, and 

 takes flight on the slightest alarm. Should the male be killed, the 

 female also may be shot without difficulty: for her attachment tc 

 him is sucli, that she continues flying round with the most plaintive 

 voice; and, often passing within a few yards of the gunner, ii is an 

 easy matter to kill her. But, if the female happen to be shot first, 

 the aftection of her mate does not prove so romantic; for, retiring to 

 the top of some distant tree, he is not easily approached: he does not, 

 however, ceasj to sing, but becomes so wary as, on the least alarm, to 

 fly entirely away from that neighborhood. 



The female forms her nest between the forks of trees, or in bushy 

 groves. She lays four white, round eggs. This Falcon, for its size, 

 is a very destructive species. It preys on Partridges, Hares, Quails, 

 Moles, Rats, and other small animals. 



It is a native of Caffraria, in the South of Africa, and of some of 

 the adjacent countries. 



OF THE OWLS IN GENERAL. 



In this tribe as in the last, the bill is hooked, but it is not furnished 



with a cere. The nostrils 

 are oblong, and covered 

 with bristly feathers. 

 The head, ears and eyes, 

 are very large; the 

 tongue is cleft. 



Much in the same man- 

 ner as Moths differ from 

 Butterflies, do these birda 

 differ from the Falcons; 

 the Owls being noctur- 

 nal, and pursuing their 

 prey only in the night; 

 and the Falcons flying al- 

 together in the day-time. 

 They feed principally on 

 small birds and quadru- 

 peds, and on nocturnal 

 insects: the exuviae and bones of which (as in the Falcons) are 

 always discharged at the mouth, in the form of small pellets. Their 

 >yes are so constructed, that they are able to see much more distinctly 

 in the dusk of the evening than in the broad glare of sunshine. All 

 animals, by the contraction and dilatation of the eye, have, in some 

 degree, the power of shutting out or admitting light, as their necessi- 

 ties require, but in the Owls this property is observed in singular 



