THE BARN OWL. 



The white owl seeks the antique ruined wall, 

 Fearless of rapine ; or, in hollow trees, 

 'Which age has cavern'd, safely courts repose ; 



and -while it is the most common, is, at the same time the most useful, and in its 

 plumage, perhaps the most beautiful of all the British owls. It is also extensively 

 spread throughout Europe, Asia, and America. The general colour of this bird ou the 

 upper part is yello^vish bro-*vn, and on the under part white. The upper part is streaked, 

 spotted, and sprinkled with wliite, gray, and dusky. Its length is thirteen inches. 



It has obtained the name of the Screech Owl from its cries, which are repeated at 

 intervals, and rendered loud and frightful from the stillness of the night. It is on this 

 account considered, among the superstitious, a bird of unwelcome omen. Shakspeare 

 observes — 



" It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, 

 Which gives the stern'st good night." 



The highly ingenious and intelligent naturalist, Mr. Waterton, says, " Up to the year 

 1813, the barn owl had a sad time of it at Walton Hall. Its supposed mournful notes 

 alarmed the aged housekeeper. She knew full well what sorrow it had brought into 

 other houses when she was a young woman ; and there was enough of mischief in the 

 midnight wuitry blast, without having it increased by the dismal screams of something 

 which people knew very httle about, and which everybody said was far too busy in the 

 churchyard at night time. Nay, it was a well-known fact, that if any person were sick 

 in the neighbourhood, it would be for ever looking in at the window, and holding a con- 

 versation outside with somebody, they did not know whom. The gamekeeper agreed 

 with her in everything she said on this important subject ; and he always stood better 

 in her books when he had managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. 

 However, ia 181.3, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and 

 learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal laws which the knavery of the 

 gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in 

 force, far too successfully, to thia the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting 

 tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the 

 lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone 

 and mortar, about four feet square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it. Huge 

 masses of ivy now quite cover it. In about a month or so after it was finished, a pair 

 of bam owls came and took up their abode in it. I threatened to strangle the keeper if 

 ever, after this, he molested the old birds or their young ones ; and I assured the house- 

 keeper that I would take upon myself the whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe. 



* Strix Flaimnea. — Linn. 



