46 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



on the wing, and their whole structure is admirably adapted for the life they 

 lead. Their plumage is beautifully soft and loose, so that their flight^is- 

 almost noiseless ; their stout legs are furnished with large feet terminating 

 in powerful claws, so that they can snap up their prey as they fly over the 

 ground or through the trees ; their large heads are provided with round 

 projecting eyes, surrounded with a flattened disc of feathers that intensify 

 their vision, and the hawk-like hooked beaks are adapted for tearing their 

 prey to pieces. 



There is some doubt as to which particular bird "was denned under this 

 name in the Scriptures, and though the translators from the Hebrew coupled 

 the owl with desolation, more modern students consider that such dissimilar 

 birds as the ostrich, pelican, and cormorant have been placed under the name 

 of the owl. Among the Greeks and Romans the owl was considered the 

 emblem of wisdom, and was sacred to Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, Arts, 

 and War ; and, as Pallas Athene, it was the tutelary goddess of Athens. 



The Delicate Owl is so closely related to the common European Barn Owl 

 (Strix flammea) that it is usually considered only a sub-species peculiar to 

 Australia, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and New Guinea. It well deserves, 

 the name of Delicate Owl on account of its beautiful, soft, white breast, 

 feathers and dainty brown markings on the back and shoulders. It ranges 

 over all classes of country. I once caught one in the homestead stable 

 among the granite ranges of north-western Victoria ; it was quite blind, 

 and had wasted away to skin and bone from the grass-seeds that had become 

 embedded in its eyes. When on the Flinders River tablelands in northern 

 Queensland I remember them as plentiful, sleeping in the open weather-worn 

 cavities eaten out of the sides of the sandstone gorges. Explorers in central 

 Australia record them as common in the thick-foliaged mulga bushes in the 

 inland scrubs, and others have found them sleeping in hollow spouts in th& 

 limbs of big gum-trees along the river banks of the Northern Territory. 



It is in this latter situation that they usually lay their eggs, six in number, 

 on the decayed wood on the bottom of the cavity in the limb ; the eggs are, 

 as with most owls, pure-white and very round. The European variety has 

 the curious habit of bringing up the nestlings in pairs. As soon as the first 

 pair of eggs are hatched, she deposits a second pair of eggs, which are hatched 

 in due course by the warmth of the bodies of the first clutch, and often a 

 third pair are hatched in this manner. Among the country folk in England 

 the Barn Owl is looked upon as an evil creature that peers through the 

 window of the sick-room, and its sudden boot at the dead of night warns one 

 of coming death. In some places they also believe that if one discovers a 

 resting owl, he can, by walking slowly round it, cause it to twist its head off, 

 as it keeps turning its head to watch the intruder. From their nocturnal 

 habits, soft soundless flight, and weird call-notes, the Barn Owls in the dark 

 ages were often associated with witches, who were supposed to assume the 

 garb of owls when flying about at night. Though to a certain extent a. 



