246 NATURAL HISTORY 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) 

 to hoot at all; all that clamorous hooting appears to 

 me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does 

 indeed snore and hiss in a tremendous manner; and 

 these menaces well answer the intention of intimi- 

 dating : for I have known a whole village up in arms 

 on such an occasion, imagining the churchyard to be 

 full of goblins and spectres. White owls also often 

 scream horribly as they fly along ; from this screaming 

 probably arose the common people's imaginary species 

 of screech-owl, which they superstitiously 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 cen- 

 turies, 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 generations 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 sub- 

 stance. 



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 without 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 



