194 BIRDS OF THE NIGHT. 



hear when the birds of night, on a still summer evening, 

 are flying over short distances in a neighboring wood. 

 There is a feeling of mystery awakened by these sounds 

 that exalts the pleasure we derive from the delightful in- 

 fluence of the hour and the season. But the emotions 

 thus produced are of a cheerful kind, slightly imbued 

 with sadness, and not equal in intensity to the effects of 

 the hardly perceptible sound occasioned by the flight of 

 the Owl as he glides by in the dusk of evening or in the 

 dim light of the moon. Similar in effect is the dismal 

 voice of this bird, which is harmonized with darkness, 

 and, though in some cases not unmusical, is tuned as it 

 were to the terrors of that hour when he makes secret 

 warfare upon the sleeping inhabitants of the wood. 



THE ACADIAN OWL, OR SAW-WHETTER. 



One of the most interesting of this family of birds is 

 the little Acadian Owl, whose note formerly excited 

 much curiosity. In the " Canadian Naturalist " an ac- 

 count is given of a rural excursion in April, when the 

 attention of the party was called, just after sunset, to a 

 peculiar sound heard in a cedar-swamp. It was compared 

 to the measured tinkling of a cowbell, or to regular 

 strokes upon a piece of iron quickly repeated. One of 

 the party, who could not describe the bird, remembered 

 that " during the months of April and May, and in the 

 former part of June, we frequently hear after nightfall 

 the sound just described. From its regularity it is 

 thought to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the 

 bird from which it proceeds is called the Saw-Whetter." 



These singular sounds are the notes of the Acadian 

 Owl. They are like the sound produced by the filing of 

 a mill-saw, and are said to be the amatory note of the 

 male, being heard only during the season of incubation. 



