194 



BRITISH BIRDS 



account for so extensive a range. But the barn-owl's universality 

 cannot be accounted for in the same way, since he is, in most 



countries, a stay- 

 at-home bird, and 

 spends his whole life, 

 from year's end to 

 year's end, in the 

 same spot. We can 

 only conjecture that 

 at some former and 

 very remote period 

 in the history of his 

 species he, too, had a 

 vagrant disposition ; 

 or else that he is a 

 very ancient bird on 

 the earth, and has 

 had unlimited time 

 to get so widely dis- 

 persed ; also, that the 

 barn-owl is one of 

 those rare types that 



can exist unaltered 

 F.o. 66.-BABa.Ow,,. natural size. 



fa & ^ varfety rf 



conditions. One of our domestic birds, the goose, affords an instance 

 of the unchangeableness of some types in all regions of the globe ; 

 but the goose has been carried everywhere by adventurous white men, 

 while the barn-owl, by means unknown to us, has distributed him- 

 self over the earth. 



Another general remark about this most strange and fascinating 

 fowl may be made in this place. The barn-owl, being so widely 

 distributed, and in many countries the most common species, and 

 being, furthermore, the only member of its order that attaches 

 itself by preference to human habitations, and is a dweller in towns 

 as well as in rural districts, is probably the chief inspirer and object of 

 the innumerable ancient owl superstitions which still flourish in all 

 countries among the ignorant. His blood-curdling voice, his white- 

 ness, and extraordinary figure, and, when viewed by day on his 

 perch in some dim interior, his luminous eyes and great round face, 

 and wonderful intimidating gestures and motions, must powerfully 



