THE EAGLE-OWL. 153 



defending the labours of the loom ; and if we cherished them 

 about our farm-houses, they would do yeomen service in 

 defence of the labours of the plough. 



Nor is the superstitious dread of them wholly without its 

 use, or would the abolition of it be unmixed gain. Mankind 

 are all the better for some checks upon them at those times 

 when they are not watched by their fellows ; and the actual 

 presence of the owl may have sometimes restrained the mid- 

 night plunderer from his purpose, as effectually as the mere 

 thought of rural wisdom enwigged with office. If so, and 

 there is little doubt of it, the owl was a cheap policeman, 

 keeping back one set of marauders, and exacting, as his fee, 

 the destruction of another. 



Of the many species of owls which are more or less fre- 

 quently seen or heard in Britain, our notice must be very 

 brief, far more so than we could have wished, and we shall 

 take them as one genus, without regarding the more nume- 

 rous and, it may be, more accurate divisions. We may remark 

 in passing, that there are four that have produced feathers on 

 the sides of the head, and are thence called " horned " owls ; 

 and four without these feathers, which are called " smooth- 

 headed." The " horns" are not horns, however, in any other 

 sense of the word, than their being, like all feathers, composed 

 of nearly the same substance as horn, and their growing on 

 parts of the head, something analogous to those on which the 

 horns of ruminating animals are produced. As little are they 

 "ears," as they are sometimes called, probably from their 

 fancied resemblance to the ears of cats ; they are " tufts," and 

 such we shall call them. The ears of owls, which are as deli- 

 cately sensitive as their eyes, are under these, and covered by 

 the feathers of the concha. 



THE GKEAT-TUFTED OWL, OE EAGLE-OWL (Strix 



A representation of this bird is given on the plate at page 



