WORDSWORTH AND SHELLEY 59 



he altered one of his lines in "The Evening 

 Walk " which had run 



" The tremulous sob of the complaining owl," 

 into 



" The sportive outcry of the mocking owl." 



I am not sure that the rhythm was improved 

 by the alteration, whatever we may think of the 

 Natural history. Shelley, too, was on the side of 

 the owl, and thought, at all events, while he was 

 sitting happily by his wife, Mary, that the cry of 

 the aziola, a "little downy owl" was 



" Such as, nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird 

 The soul ever stirred, 

 Unlike, and far sweeter than they all." 



In any case, the brown owl makes one of the 

 tamest, the most companionable, and the most 

 solemnly amusing of pets. He has little of the 

 inborn fierceness and suspicion of the other owls, 

 and will very soon learn to perch quietly on your 

 hand, or will even follow you about over a lawn or 

 through a shrubbery. One young brown owl, 

 which I brought up from the nest, and which 

 belonged, I believe, to the same storied pair of 

 parent owls, of whom I will speak presently, was 

 very partial to music, would make its way, through 

 an open window on the ground floor, into the room 



