36 THE LONG-EARED OWL 



" And yesterday the bird of night did sit 

 Even at noonday, in the market-place, 

 Hooting and shrieking." 



Of crook-backed Richard of Gloucester, too, he says : 



" The Owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign, 

 The night-crow cried." 



Different parts of the White Owl's body were sup- 

 posed to possess different magical powers, and they 

 have been used by many a rural imposter to breed awe 

 in the credulous. 



Happily all this is changed now excepting amongst 

 a small ignorant minority. Of late years women who 

 affected the fashion of wearing owls heads and wings 

 on toques seemed likely to become the poor Owls' worst 

 enemy. Mr. Ward Fowler saw, not long ago, in a 

 public house, this advertisement: "Wanted at once by 

 a London firm, 1,000 owls." 



The late R. Bosworth Smith wrote: "The num- 

 ber of owls has been terribly diminished. Let them 

 be encouraged and protected in every possible way. Let 

 the gamekeeper be rewarded, as I have rewarded him 

 myself, not for the owls he destroys, but for the owls he 

 preserves. . . . Let the owl be regarded and protected 

 in England as the stork is regarded and protected in 

 Holland!" 



The Long-eared Owl is 15 inches in length. The 

 upper parts are a warm buff, mottled and pearled with 

 brown and grey and streaked with dark brown, bill 

 black, dark markings about the eyes, facial disk buff 

 with greyish black margin and outer rim. The long 

 erectile tufts are streaked with dark brown. The eyes 



