102 Strigidce. 



which we possess, four are with, the remaining three without, 

 the above mentioned horns or tufts. 



19. EAGLE OWL (Bubo maximus). 



Hibou Grand Due of the French; Grosse Ohreule huhu of 

 the Germans ; Bufo, and Corujdo of the Portuguese ; Buho 

 Grande of the Spaniards ; in Orkney known as the ' Stock 

 Owl/ or Katogle a name, doubtless, derived from the Nor- 

 wegian Kat-ugla; in Sweden Berg Uf, or 'Mountain Owl/ 

 I learn from the list of the British Ornithological Union Com- 

 mittee that Bubo is derived from ucu, ' to hoot/ and that from 

 the root oj$, 'a cry;' and that from thence came Byzantium, 

 ' the place of owls/ I also learn from Professor Skeat that owl, 

 ule y eule, ugle, ulula, and the equivalents to these in most 

 European languages come from ul, ' to hoot ' or ' screech ;' while 

 with a prefixed h added for emphasis we get ' to howl/ I admit 

 this fine species to our Wiltshire list on the authority of the Rev. 

 A. P. Morres, who instances an authentically recorded and un- 

 disputed capture of a fine specimen at Handley Common, on the 

 borders of the county. This bird was taken alive, and kept for 

 some seven or eight years by Mr. Thomas King, of Alvediston, in 

 this county, and about the year 1853 or 1854 passed into the 

 possession of Mr. Hayter, of Woodyates. Whether it had escaped 

 from confinement, or whether it was a genuinely wild visitor to 

 our county, there is no evidence to show ; but I am glad to 

 admit it among the birds of Wilts, because of the admiration 

 with which I regard this, the largest of the European owls, and 

 because of its grand and majestic demeanour. It is, indeed, the 

 king of owls, as all who have seen it alive in a wild state will 

 testify ; and as it steals along in buoyant and noiseless flight, so 

 big and yet so silent, it alarms the belated countryman as some- 

 thing uncanny and foreboding no good. The first specimen I 

 ever saw was in the hands of a peasant who had just shot it, and 

 from whom I purchased it some forty-five years ago, in the 

 wildest and most terrific of passes, at the entrance of the Via 

 Mala, in the Canton Orisons, in Switzerland. The bird was yet 



