TIIE EAGLE-OWL. 231 



whose screams are being stopped by being strangled. I 

 have offered rewards for a specimen, but without success." * 

 The resemblance of this description to that given by 

 Wilson of the performances of the great horned owl of 

 North America, induces a suspicion that Mr Mitford may 

 be in error, in so confidently denying the Ceylon bird to 

 be an owl. Wilson says of his formidable species, " His 

 favourite residence is in the dark solitudes of deep swamps, 

 covered with a growth of gigantic timber ; and here, as 

 soon as evening draws on, and mankind retire to rest, he 

 sends forth such sounds as seem scarcely to belong to this 

 world, startling the solitary pilgrim as he slumbers by his 

 forest fire, 



' Making night hideous.' 



Along the mountainous shores of the Ohio, and amidst 

 the deep forests of Indiana, alone, and reposing in the 

 woods, this ghostly watchman has frequently warned me 

 of the approach of morning, and amused me with his 

 singular exclamations, sometimes sweeping down and 

 around my fire, uttering a loud and sudden ' Waugh ! 

 Waugh ! ' sufficient to have alarmed a whole garrison. 

 He has other nocturnal solos, no less melodious, one of 

 which very strikingly resembles the half-suppressed screams 

 of a person suffocating, or throttled, and cannot fail of 

 being exceedingly entertaining to a lonely benighted 

 traveller, in the midst of an Indian wilderness." ( 



I have myself heard the startling call of this fine night- 

 fowl in the Southern States, when, in penetrating through 



* Tennent's Ceylon, i, p. 167. t Amer. OrnithoL, i., p. 100. 



