122 On the Occurrence of some of the Rarer Species of Birds 
to be a likely haunt for some light-hating fowl. I immediately 
ascended the face of the rock, carrying in my hand a long ashen 
rod of some twelve or fifteen feet, wherewith to probe the hidden 
interstices of the recess. But just as I gained the desired level, my 
foot slipped, and for a moment I was balancing in mid-air, without 
the least certainty which direction the impetus would eventually 
take. Had it been backward, in all probability, I should never have 
been penning these lines, but a good Providence ordained it to be 
forwards. I. shall never forget that moment of suspense, which 
dwells still on my memory like some dread vision of the night. On 
recovering myself, and applying my ashen rod to the furthest ex- 
tremity of the crevice, I was rewarded by a White Owl ftying right 
at my face, which I beat down with my hands, and successfully 
captured. I took the bird home with me to Wells, and after ex- 
hibiting him with his droll visage to my friends, I resolved to let 
him go again. On doing which he most curiously flew directly into 
the passage of a house where a person was lying at the point of 
death: and I could not help pondering on the strong impression that 
this untoward circumstance would have made on some of those good 
folks who are given to superstition. 
Ulula Stridula, “The Tawny or Brown Owl.” It is to this bird 
that we are so much indebted for those melodious hootings, that 
enliven the otherwise monotonous silence of the night. I have often 
kept these birds alive, and when I kept a pair in my garden, here 
at the Vicarage, they attracted their comrades I should think for some 
considerable distance round. While I had them we had such a chorus 
of wild Brown Owls, hooting and snapping all round the house, 
that it would have driven anyone but an ornithologist frantic. I 
must say that it amused and delighted me extremely, and one evening 
I counted no less than four wild birds hooting in different keys, and 
from different quarters, but apparently all in close proximity to the 
prisoners. But my parishioners did not, all of them, share my 
enthusiasm, and I heard several indistinct murmurs from some of 
my more immediate neighbours, concerning the wringing the necks 
of my tame birds, as they declared they could not get a wink of 
sleep on account of the Owlish concert that was thus gratuitously 
