The Oologist. 



VOL. XII. NO. 7. 



ALBION, N. Y., JULY, 1895. 



Whole No. 117 



•palled, by common consent, from the 

 •society of all day creatures who seize 

 every opportunity to annoy and insult 

 him. Even the light of day itself 

 pierces into his vitals with a paralytic 

 -effect upon his energy. So he isolates 

 himself in the twilight of dismal 

 swamps and hollow trees and passes 

 the hours of sunlight in gloomy con- 

 templation. 



Besides the Crows, Jays and smaller 

 fry that makes life uncomfortable by 

 their malicious teasing he has other 

 and more dangerous enemies — the 

 sportsman, the collector and the far- 

 mer. The sportsman shoots him when- 

 ever possible for no better reason than 

 that he is an Owl and the farmer for 

 •scarcely a more worthy one, viz: his 

 occasional i"aid upon the barnyard, 

 never for a moment crediting him with 

 the desti'uction of thousands of weasels, 

 skunks, field-mice and other noxious 

 pests. Any flattering attention paid to 

 the farmer's poultry receives no ap- 

 preciation and not even the fact that, 

 in order to save this worthy the pain 

 of bidding his poulti'y a fond farewell 

 and also profanity, he considerately 

 waits until night before abducting a 

 chicken, mitigate his persecution. He 

 could be as pure of all thieving pro- 

 pensities as an angel but would never- 

 theless be an outlaw and a villian be- 

 cause he is an Owl. Even to approach 

 the barnyard with no deeper purpose 

 than to study the interesting ways of 

 the domestic bird would not be con- 

 ductive of good health. The farmer 

 often ascends tall trees and tumbles 

 baby Owls fi'om big nests, then intro- 

 duces them into spirit land by the ap- 

 plication of an axe to the spinal ver- 

 tebra just below their thinking appar- 

 atus and this because they some day 

 might steal a chicken. What would 



we say if when a man was hung his 

 whole family, his relations and all 

 other men that in the least resembled 

 him and their families and relations 

 were executed because they too might 

 murder? 



From the shadows of the night the 

 Owl pours forth his woes and prayers 

 of evil to mankind. His are seemingly 

 the ravings of a grieved and soured 

 nature, one that glories in sin, misery 

 and death. There is something iii the 

 song of darkness tending strongly to- 

 ward the conversion of sinners. It is 

 uncomfortably suggestive of haydes 

 and evil spirits and sets a man to spec- 

 ulating on his hereafter probabilities. 

 It comes like the waning voice of a soul 

 in torture bidding all sinners to be- 

 ware. Sounding above the moaning 

 winds on a cold, forlorn winter night 

 it conjures up in the minds of some, 

 pictures of death and desolation and 

 the supernatural but to the naturalist 

 a pleasant suggestion of large, white 

 oOlogical specimens in that strip of 

 woods the coming March. 



Not infrequently an Owl invades the 

 city and it seems quite an incongruity 

 this quiet, restful, solemn bird amid 

 the tumult of municipal life. If he is 

 discovered by the populace and you 

 mingle with the throng you receive the 

 information from more than one wise 

 head that although he is surveying the 

 crowd with wondering eyes he is "blind 

 as a baf'and sees nothing and as he flies 

 before the mobbing school-boys many 

 look on in expectation of his knock- 

 ing his brains out on some of j the trees 

 or buildings but somehow he isn't ac- 

 commodating. These individuals who 

 think he cannot see in the daytime 

 should endeavor to approach him in 

 the woods just beyond the suburbs of 

 the city where man has demonstrated 



