100 Strigidce. 



night, and its solemn appearance are the principal cause of this 

 popular error: then its frequent lurking-place, the church-tower; 

 its haunts, the churchyard and the neighbouring meadows : its 

 ghostly and silent Sittings ; its wild, unearthly and dismal shriek, 

 coming suddenly on the belated peasant, combine to startle and 

 terrify him into the belief that something ominous has occurred, 

 and lead him to think that the owl bodes no good, and knows 

 more than he ought, and portends calamity: and this idea is 

 greatly strengthened by the strange pleasure which the bird 

 seems to evince in singling out and hooting at the window of the 

 sleepless and fever-racked invalid, a greeting ever dreaded as 

 the unfailing forerunner of death, but which was only a scream 

 of surprise, with which the bird testified its perception of the 

 light burning in the sick man's room, and to which it was 

 attracted from its hunting-fields. Thus the ignorance of man 

 has from time immemorial attributed evil to the owls, and caused 

 them to be regarded with suspicion and superstitious horror, and 

 consequently to be persecuted in every way ; and were it not for 

 their habit of keeping close to their hiding-places during the day, 

 and only emerging with the declining light, they would probably 

 soon be exterminated from our island, without any regard to their 

 real harmlessness and the immense benefit they confer on man. 



It is very rarely indeed that an owl is seen abroad when the 

 sun is shining, but should one from any cause be driven or 

 tempted from its retreat during the day, it is attacked on all 

 sides, mobbed, persecuted, and pursued by a host of small birds, 

 screaming and chattering and scolding, who, knowing its help- 

 lessness at such a time, and seizing the opportunity, rejoice to 

 take the common enemy at a disadvantage, and worry him with 

 great gusto. 



Like their diurnal brethren of prey, owls reproduce the in- 

 digestible parts of the animals they have swallowed, as fur, 

 feathers, bones, etc., in large pellets or castings, many bushels of 

 which may be seen at the foot of the hollow tree, or the bottom 

 of the ruined ivy-covered tower, which they have selected for 

 their abode. Like the hawks, too, they live in pairs ; but rarely 



