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BUBO, 



luxtration. Upon one of these occasions the bird of ill omen penetrated 

 into the very oella of the Capitol. 



Teimiiinck says that it inhabiU great forests, and that it is very 

 common in Hungary, Russia, Germany, and Switzerland, lend common 

 in France and England, and never een in Holland. He adds, that it 

 u found at the Cape of Good Hope. Willughby observes that about 

 Bologna, and elsewhere in Italy, it U frequent Binaparte note* it aa 

 rare in the neighbourhood of Rome, and Bays that it is only een in 

 mounUinous situations. It in said to extend eastward aa far as 

 Kamtchatka, 



Pennant state* that it has been shot in Scotland, and in Yorkshire, 

 from which county it was sent to Willughby. Latham adds Kent and 

 Sussex u localities where it has been found. It is said to have been 

 seen in the Orkneys ; and four are stated to have occurred on the 

 northern coast of Donegal in Ireland. The Eagle-Owl then can be 

 only considered as a rare visitant to our islands. 



The following is Temminck's description : Upper part of the body 

 variegated and undulated with black and ochreous; lower parts 

 ochreous, with longitudinal black dashes ; throat white ; feet covered 

 to the nails with plumes of a reddish-yellow ; iris bright orange. 

 Length two feet The female is larger than the male ; but the tints of 

 her plumage are less bright, and she is without the white on the 

 throat It sometimes varies in having the colours less lively and in 

 being of inferior dimensions. 



Its food consists of young roes and fawns, hares, moles, rats, mice, 

 winged game, frogs, lizards, and beetles. " 



It builds its nest in the hollows of rocks, in old castiee and other 

 ruins, where the female lays two or three, but rarely four, round 

 white eggs. Latham says two, " the size of those of n hen." 



M. Cronstedt, who resided on a farm in Sudermania, near a 

 mountain, had an opportunity of witnessing the devotion of these 

 birds to their young, and their care in supplying them with food, even 

 under extraordinary circumstances. Two Eagle-Owls had built their 

 nest on the mountain, and a young one which had wandered away 

 was taken by the servants and confined in a hen-coop. The next 

 morning there was a dead partridge lying close to the door of the 

 coop. Food was brought to the same place for fourteen successive 

 nights ; this generally consisted of young partridges newly killed, but 

 sometimes a little tainted. Once a moor-fowl was brought still warm 

 under the wings, and at another time a piece of lamb in a putrid 

 state. M. Cronstedt sat up with his servant many nights in order to 

 observe the deposit of the supply if possible, but in vain. It was 

 evident however to M. Cronstedt that the parents were the caterers, 

 and on the look-out, for on the very night when M. Cronstedt and his 

 errant ceased to watch, the usual food was left near the coop. The 

 supply continued from the time when the young owl was taken in 

 July to the usual time, in the month of August, when these birds 

 leave their young to their own exertions. 



Belon gives an account of the use which falconers made of this 

 bird to entrap the kite. They tied the tail of a fox to the Eagle-Owl, 

 and let him fly. This spectacle soon excited the attention of the kite, 

 if he were near, and he continued to fly near the owl, not endeavour- 

 ing to hurt him, but apparently intent on observing his odd figure. 

 While so employed the falconer surprised and took the kite. 



There are specimens in the Gardens of the Zoological Society in the 

 Regent's Park. 



IttJtu I'iryinianut, the Virginian Horned-Owl (Strix Viryiniana of 

 Vieillott ; Due de Virginie of Buffon ; Netowky-Omeesew of the 

 Cree Indians, according to Mr. Hutchins; Otowack-Oho of the 

 Creel of the plains of the Saskatchewan, according to Sir John 

 Richardson). 



Pennant, in his ' Arctic Zoology,' says that this seems to be a variety 

 of the eagle-owl, although he notices the inferiority in size : but it is 

 a very distinct species. 



It is not improbable, as Sir John Richardson observes, that this 

 night-bird, peculiar to America, inhabits that continent from end to 

 end. Cuvier gives his opinion that the filrir Hagtllanica of the 

 ' Planches Enluminc'es ' differs merely in having browner tints of 

 colour ; and Sir John Richardson mentions the result of Mr. Swain- 

 son's comparison of the northern specimens with those of the table- 

 land of Mexico, as confirmatory of the identity of the species ; the 

 only difference being a more general rufous and vivid tint of plumage 

 in the Mexican specimens. Almost every part of the United States 

 possesses this bird, and it is found, according to Richardson, in all the 

 Fur Countries where the timber is of large siie. 



We hare seen how the civilised Romans regarded the European 

 bird ; and it is curious to observe how, in a comparatively savage 

 state, the same superstitious feelings were connected with the Ameri- 

 can species. " The savages," says Pennant, quoting Colden's ' Six 

 Indian Nations,' " have their birds of ill-omen as well as the Romans. 

 They have a most superstitious terror of the owl, which they carry so 

 far as to be highly displeased at any one who mimics iU hooting*. " 

 Lawwm. evidently speaking of these birds, says " They make a fear- 

 ful hallooing in the night-time, like a man, whereby they often make 

 strangers lose their way in the woods." Wilson thus describes the 

 haunts and habits of the Virginian Horned-Owl : " His favourite 

 residence is in the dark solitudes of deep swamps, covered with a 

 growth of gigantic timber ; and here, as soon as the evening draws on, 



BUBO. 67* 



and mankind retire to rest, be Muds forth nuc.li sounds as seem scarcely 



to belong to this world Along the mountain shores of the 



Ohio, and amidst the deep forests of Indiana, alone, and reposing in 

 the woods, this ghostly watchman ha* frequently warned me of the 

 approach of morning, and amused me with his singular exclamations, 

 sometimes sweeping down and around my fire, uttering a loud . and 

 midden ' Waugh O ! Waugh O ! ' sufficient to have alarmed a whole 

 garrison. He has other nocturnal solo*, one of which very strikingly 

 resembles the half -suppressed screams of a person suffocating or 

 throttled." Wilson treats this visitation like a philosopher, but, after 

 reading his description and that of Xuttall (' Ornithology of the United 

 States 7 ), we shall cease to wonder at the well-told tale in the ' Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana,' of the winter night of agony endured by a party 

 of Scottish Highlanders, who, according to Sir John Richardson, hail 

 made their bivouac in the recesses of a North American forest, and 

 inadvertently fed their fire with a part of an Indian tomb which had 

 been placed in the secluded spot The startling notes of the Virginian 

 Horned-Owl broke upon their ear, and they at once concluded that so 

 unearthly a voice must be the moaning of the spirit of the departed, 

 whose repose they supposed they had disturbed. 



(flulm 1'irpinianttx). 



The following is Sir John Richardson's description c,f the plumage 

 of a specimen, 26 inches in length from the tip <( the Kill to the end 

 of the tail, killed at Fort Chepcwvan : 



"Bill and claws jwle bluiith-black. Irides bright yellow. Facial 

 circle of a deep black immediately round the orbit, composed of white 

 mixed with black bristly feathers at the base of the I 'ill, ami poste- 

 riorly of yellowish brown wiry feathers, tipped with black, and ha\ in^ 

 black shaft*. The black tips form a conspicuous border to the facial 

 circle posteriorly ; but the small feathers behind the auditory opening 

 ditl. r little in colour and appearance from the adjoining plumage of 

 the neck. Egrets composed of ten or twelve dark brown feathers, 

 spotted at the base of their outer webs, and along their whole inner 

 ones, with yellowish brown. Forehead and crown dark blackish- 

 brown, finely mottled with grayish-white, and partially exhibiting the 

 yellowish-brown base of the plumage. The whole doraal plumage is 

 yellowish-brown for more than half the length of each feather ft 

 base, and dark liver-brown upwards, finely barred and indented with 

 undulated white lines. More of the yellowish -In MWII i^ visible on the 

 neck and between the shoulders than elsewhere. The primaries pre- 

 sent six or seven bars of dark umber or liver-brown, alternating with 

 six bars, which on the outer webs are brownish-white, finely speckled 

 with dork -brown, and on the inner webs are of a bright buff-colour, 

 sparingly speckled with the dark-brown near the shafts. The tips of 

 the feathers have the same mottled appearance with the paler bars of 

 the outer webs. The secondaries and tail-feathers ore similarly 



