464 AVES— OWL. 



powerfully upon the sensibility of the eye, is excluded ; while, by dilating 

 the pupil, the animal takes in the more faint rays of the night, an^ thereby 

 is enabled to spy its prey, and catch it with greater facility in the dark. 



But though owls are dazzled by too bright a daylight, yet they do not see 

 best in the darkest nights, as some have been apt to imagine. 



The nights v\-hen the moon shines are the times of their most successful 

 plunder ; for when it is wholly dark, they are less qualified for seeing and 

 pursuing their prey ; except, therefore, by moonlight, they contract the hours 

 of their chase ; and if they come out at the approach of dusk in the evening, 

 they return before it is totally dark, and then rise by twilight the next 

 morning, to pursue their game, and to return, in like manner, before the 

 broad daylight begins to dazzle them with its splendor. 



Yet the faculty of seeing in the night, or of being entirely dazzled by day, 

 is not alike in every species of these nocturnal birds. The common white 

 or barn owl, for instance, sees with such exquisite acuteness in the dark, 

 though the barn has been shut at night, and the light thus totally excluded, 

 that it perceives the smallest mouse that peeps from its hole ; on the con- 

 trary, the brown horned owl is often seen to prowl along the hedges by day, 

 like the sparrow-hawk; and sometimes Avith good success. The note of the 

 owl is not unpleasant. "A friend," says Mr White, "remarks that most 

 of his owls hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A. — 

 A neighbor of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the owls 

 about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F sharp, in B flat 

 and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and the 

 other in B flat." 



THE AMERICAN HORNED OWL-i 



The great horned owl is found in almost every quarter of the United 

 States. "His favorite residence, however, is in the dark solitudes of deep 

 swamps, covered with a growth of gigantic timber ; and here, as soon as 

 -evening draws on, and mankind retire to rest, he sends forth such sounds, 

 as seem scarcely to belong to this Avorld. Along the mountainous shores of 

 the Ohio, and amidst the deep forests of Indiana, alone and reposing in the 

 woods, this ghostly watchman has frequently warned me of the approach of 

 morning, and amused me by his singular exclamations ; sometimes sweep- 

 ing down and around my fire, uttering a sudden Waitgh O! Waugh O .' 

 sufficient to have alarmed a whole garrison. He has other nocturnal solos, 

 no less melodious, one of which very strikingly resembles the half suppress- 



1 Strix Virginiana, Wilson". 



