46 OWLS 



where to look for her, or when you will find her. 

 She follows her prey and well is it for man, as we 

 shall see hereafter, that she does so wherever it is 

 most abundant. Folk-lore, which has so much to 

 say about other species of the owl, is silent, or 

 almost silent, about her. No poet has sung of 

 her. The favourite epithets of the poets for the 

 owl from the earliest times " moping," "moody," 

 " melancholy," " bird of darkness," " bird of death " 

 sit ill upon her. Gamekeepers, with few excep- 

 tions, know her not. Pole-traps, with all their 

 gruesome paraphernalia, and their luxury of torture, 

 are not for her or hers. 



Nevertheless, she is a remarkable bird. Her 

 geographical range is wide wide almost as the 

 raven. She is found over the whole of Europe, 

 over the north of Asia and Africa, and over the 

 whole of both Americas. Darwin noted her 

 presence in the Galapagos, that remarkable group 

 of islands on the Equator, which did so much, first, to 

 set him in the path and then to lead him so many 

 steps forward, in his momentous and epoch-making 

 discoveries. She is found even in the Sandwich 

 Islands, in the middle of the North Pacific. 



Her disabilities are great. All owls are bad 

 walkers, owing to the length and sharpness of their 



