258 BOMBAY DUCKS 



evil omen. According to my friend B. Kaccoo Mai 

 Manucha, Rai Bahadur (whose book, " The Hindu 

 Home Life," should be read by all), "If you love a 

 person who does not return your love, offer a dish of 

 meat prepared with an owl's flesh, and as soon as it is 

 tasted, he or she will be head over ears in love with 

 you." 



Listen to this, ye languishing maidens and love-sick 

 swains, listen ! How is it that ye are so sad when 

 spotted owlets innumerable are living in your neigh- 

 bourhood ? 



But, stay, let me not raise false hopes ! Not only has 

 the owl, like the proverbial hare, to be caught before he 

 is cooked, but when the bird is cooked, it is necessary 

 to induce the object of your affections to eat him. 

 This may prove a difficult task in this age of sordid 

 epicureanism ; nevertheless, one can but try : it should, 

 after all, be possible to cunningly disguise the flesh in a 

 well-thought-out savoury. 



Owl's flesh has yet another useful property, as any 

 native will tell you. If a wife finds her husband in- 

 tractable, if he persists in staying late at the club, 

 losing money at bridge, and so is not at home at the 

 dinner-hour, all the wife has to do is to give him boiled 

 owl's flesh to eat, and he will, if he eats it, henceforth 

 be as butter in his wife's hands. 



But no rose is without its thorn. In spite of all the 

 virtues inherent in the bird's flesh, you must "never 

 allow an owl to rest on any portion of your building, 

 as that means ruin to the inmates." 



This must be true, because Kaccoo Mai says so ; yet 



