THE CLASSICS ON OWLS 19 



The owl fares ill, too, in Classical countries and 

 throughout most of classical literature. Athens, in- 

 deed, was an exception, for the " little passerine owl," 

 which is much more lively and active in his motions 

 than others of his species, and was so common 

 there that " owls to Athens " became as proverbial 

 an expression as our "coals to Newcastle," was 

 regarded, possibly because of its flashing " glaucous" 

 eyes, like those which were attributed to the goddess, 

 as the sacred bird of Athena 



" Athena's solemn snapping fowls " 



and its figure was stamped on the silver coins of 

 the country, which were called, for that reason, "owls 

 of Laurium." More than this, the goddess herself 

 is believed to have been sometimes represented 

 with an owl's head, the true meaning, some have 

 surmised, of the famous Homeric epithet for her 



yXawcwTriy (glaucopis). 



But if Athens was an exception to the general 

 prejudices about the owl, it was only an exception 

 which proved the rule. "Loathsome," "moping," 

 "unclean," "ill-omened" such are the stock 

 epithets which are applied to it. It was an owl, as 

 Virgil sings, that, perching upon the housetop at 

 Carthage, predicted the desertion, the desolation, 



