HEARING. 41 



ear in owls. Speaking of the owl, Dr. Farrar says, 

 " He never hunts or goes abroad for food except in 

 twilight ; and even then, when in an old building-, 

 where his prey abounds, he will be seen perched 

 majestically and silently upon any projecting sub- 

 stance whatever. Thus elevated above the ground, 

 sounds indicating his prey must ascend, and are 

 received by the arched, overhanging, and concave 

 external bony structure of his ear. This function being 

 roused, his head is naturally turned into the direction 

 whence the sounds emanate ; arid he is thus enabled 

 to discover, if not always to seize his prey*." 



Skull of the Horned Owl ; a, the auditory canal. 



"In a fox," says Grew, a that scouteth underneath 

 the prey at roost, it (the ear) is for the same reason 

 produced farther out below. In the polecat, which 

 hearkens straight forward, it is produced behind, for 

 the taking of a forward sound. Whereas in a hare, 

 which is very quick of hearing, and thinks of nothing 

 but being pursued, it is supplied with a bony tube, 

 which, as a natural acoustic (ear-trumpet), is so 

 directed backwards as to receive the smallest and 

 most distant sound that comes behind herf." Dr. 

 Farrar has investigated these circumstances with still 

 more minuteness than Grew, from whom he probably 

 took the hint. In the skull of the hare, he tells us, 



* Mag. of Nat. Hist. iv. 12. f Cosmologia Sacra, i. 5. 



