58 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. {N.S., XIX. 
areece, it was held to bea Birdof Wisdom. It is so held in manv 
countries. The idea of wisdom seems to have been associated 
with it from the fact of the solemnity of the way in which it 
sits. Mr. Robinson in the Chapter (XIII) on Owls in his book 
on “* Distinguished Animals,”’ ! thus speaks of the subject in a 
humourous way: 
‘* As one sees them in their cages in the Zoological Gardens, 
the larger owls are persons of such extraordinary solemnity 
that one almost wonders whether one has not met them at the 
Club. Properly disposed in an armchair, the large owl, for 
instance, might, to the casual glance, pass well enough for an 
elderly member waiting for the Atheneum: and it is no 
wonder that in the myths of so many countries the owl has 
been the bird of wisdom.” In its state or posture of repose, it 
looks wise. But in its posture of wakefulness, it looks “ frankly 
absurd.” It is its voice not’ being ‘“‘ commensurate with the 
dignity of its appearance”? that has made it unpopular. The 
voice sounds as plaintive. 
Countess Cezaresco, thus speaks of the cause why the bird 
was held to be the symbol! of wisdom. “It is a most unfortu- 
nate thing for an animal if it be the innocent cause of a frisson, 
a feeling of uncanny dread. The little Italian owl, notwith- 
standing that it too comes out at dusk, has escaped prejudice. 
This was the owl of Pallas Athene and of an earlier cult. As 
Luminous Owls. 
The sight of some luminous owls seems to have added to 
the view which made the bird a bird of wisdom. As to the 
luminosity of that species, the cause is not properly ascer- 
tained. Some say: “these birds acquired their luminosity 
by living in, perhaps, a rotten tree phosphorescent with fungoid 
matter.”"* Some attribute it to its “ dieting on rats killed with 
phosphorus.”’* Some attribute the luminosity to a “‘ fungoid 


1 ** Of Distinguished Animals,” by H. Perry Robinson, 1910, p. 212. 
?**The Place of Animals in Human Thought,” by the ‘Countess 
. 


