STRIGIDJE. 151 



Lest bogle? catch him unawares ; 

 Kirk Alloway was drawing nigh, 

 Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry." 



He also begins a pretty long poem " To the Owl" with 



" Sad bird of night what sorrows call thee forth 

 To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight hour ? 

 Is it some blast that gathers in the north 



Threatening to nip the verdure of thy bower ? " 



And all for what? Simply because some of the most useful 

 birds in creation select the retired and suitable shelters for the 

 day, and enter upon their useful mission at night, sometimes 

 giving vent to their own peculiar hooting cry. They generally 

 nestle in the holes of trees, old nests, crevices of rocks, holes in 

 old buildings, dovecots, ivy, and some of them on the ground. 

 Like all the Raptores they are early breeders ; most of them are 

 nocturnal or crepuscular feeders, sallying out at the close of day 

 when other birds are retiring to roost, and when the creatures 

 which form their food are also quitting their holes to commit 

 havoc in fancied security during the silence and darkness of 

 night — not knowing that the owl is noiselessly watching them 

 from above. Shakespeare was not a bad naturalist when he 

 makes Macbeth say — 



"Light thickens, and the crow 

 Makes wing to the rooky wood : 

 Good things of day begin to droop and drouse ; 

 Whiles night black agents to their prey do rouse. " 



Some of the species, such as the Haivk Owls, which come 

 nearest the diurnal birds of prey, pursue their mission the same 

 as the FalconiclcB. One peculiar feature of the Strigidce is the 

 almost perfect similarity of their eggs in all but size, being all 

 white and nearly round, a distinctive feature we should hardly 

 expect in birds so different in size and haunts — the eggs laid in 

 the holes of trees and old ruins being the same as those laid on 

 the ground. Another generic feature, is the larger the facial disk 

 the more developed is the sense of hearing — hence the more 

 nocturnal ; and the less the disk and ear, the nearer the species 

 approach to the diurnal birds of prey. Linnaeus placed all the 

 owls in one genus, Strix; enlarged since into seven genera, 

 viz. : — Genus I. Bubo, or eagle-owl ; II. Otus, eared-owl ; 

 III. Scops, or Scops-eared owl ; IV. Sarnia, hawk-owl ; V. 

 Strix, screech-owl; VI. Ulula, hooting-owl; VII. Noctua, 

 night-owl. 



