THE BIBLE ON OWLS 17 



the owl, as we know him now, is not lessened, it is 

 enhanced, by knowing a little of what man has 

 thought about him in former times and how he has 

 treated him. 



" Out on ye owls," says the usurping murderer, 

 King Richard the Third, to the messengers who, 

 one after another, like the messengers to Job, bring 

 him in ever fresh tidings of deserved danger, 

 desertion, and disaster 



" Out on ye owls, nothing but songs of death." 



The Hebrew prophet pictures, with patriotic 

 agony, his native city Jerusalem, with patriotic pride, 

 her oppressor Babylon, given over to be inhabited 

 as, indeed, it still is, and as places like Jericho, 

 Petra, Baalbek, Palmyra are by owls and by what 

 he regards as their proper associates : 



Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; 

 and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance 

 there ... the owl also and the raven shall dwell in 

 it ... and it shall be an habitation of dragons, 

 and a court for owls . . . and the satyr shall cry 

 to his fellow ; the screech owl also shall rest there, 

 and find for herself a place of rest. There shall the 

 great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and 

 gather under her shadow : there shall the vultures 

 also be gathered, every one with her mate. 5 * 

 * Isaiah xiii. 21 and xxxiv. 11-15. 



B 



