OWLS. 151 



tremendous manner ; and these menaces well answer the inten- 

 tion of intimidating : for I have known a whole village up in 

 arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-yard to be fall 

 of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly 

 as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the com- 

 mon people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they super- 

 stitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The 

 plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that 

 I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it 

 may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make 

 much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal 

 through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry. 



While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention 

 what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts, As they 

 were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the 

 mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom a mass 

 of matter that at first he could not account for. After some exa- 

 mination, he found that it was a congeries of the bones of mice 

 (and perhaps of birds and bats) that had been heaping together 

 for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many gene- 

 rations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and 

 feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks.* He 

 believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of 

 substance. 



When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as a hen's 

 egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year with- 

 out any water. Perhaps the case may be the same with all birds 

 of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their legs behind them 

 as a balance to their large heavy heads : for as most nocturnal 

 birds have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to 

 contain them. Large eyes I presume are necessary to collect 

 every ray of light, and large concave ears to command the smallest 

 degree of sound or noise. I am, &c. 



The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, 

 social, and useful tribe of birds : they touch no fruit in our gar- 

 dens ; delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to 



* This is a habit common to many more of the feathered race than is generally supposed. I 

 have taken a hard pellet, just ready to be ejected, from the stomach of a cuckoo, consisting of 

 the hairy skins of caterpillars, and about the size of a sparrow's egg ; and all birds that feed much 

 on beetles, as the motheater, the shrikes, chats, and even the nightingale, the robin, and the red- 

 start, will thus occasionally t:ast up the indigestible refuse of whatever they had been feeding 

 on. ED. 



