Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 73 



Upon this the King did neither rebuke them, nor 

 rejed: their impious flattery. " But as he prefently 

 afterward looked up, he faw an owl fitting on a 

 certain rope, over his head ; and immediately un- 

 derftood that this bird was the meflenger of ill 

 tidings, as it had once been the meflenger of good 

 tidings to him, and fell into the deepeft forrow." 

 Severe pain at once came upon him, and he 

 acknowledged that Providence was thus reproving 

 the lying words which he had accepted from the 

 people, and died five days afterwards. This 

 pafTage is alfo noticeable for a critical battle which 

 has been fought over it ; as if Eufebius, the eccle- 

 fiaftical hiftorian, had falsified thefe words of 

 Jofephus to identify the owl with the angel of the 

 Lord mentioned in the Book of Acts, the word 

 " meflenger " in the above citation being in the 

 original angelus^ angel or meflenger. Whifton has 

 a fatisfactory note on the point. 



North America admires, but Arab folk-lore bears 

 hardly upon the owl. Among the Red Indians 

 the bird is believed to lament the golden age 

 when men and animals lived in perfect unity until 

 it came to pafs that they began to quarrel, when 

 the Great Spirit in difguft failed acrofs the feas, to 

 return when they had made up their differences. 

 So every night in the great pine forefts the fnowy 

 owl repeats his- " Koo, koo fkoos!" " Oh, I am 

 forry !" u Oh, I am forry I" 1 The fine owl of the 

 Sinaitic Peninfula, however, is known by the 



1 Leith Adams's " Field and Foreft Rambles in New Bruns- 

 wick," p. 58. 



