266 Bird - Lore 



There are some people who dread the voice of the Screech Owl; they com- 

 plain that it is mournful with foreboding, wailing with melancholy. But I 

 would not rob the night of mystery nor take from music the glory of her thre- 

 nodies. There are hours for comedy and hours for tragedy, days of prose and 

 nights of poetry, and where tragedy stalks, there must be heard the Owlet's 

 note. The ululations of the Owl, his mocking laughter, yield a mystery to a 

 grove otherwise commonplace. Who would not barter his shade trees for a 

 haunted wood? Let those who will make merry with their Robins, but bring 

 me at evening to an ancient oak, there to hear the Screech Owl tolling his 

 sorrows while the dusk grows grey. 



I can never quite reconcile myself to the fact that the Eagle, no less than 

 the domestic hen, must spend her allotted time upon the nest. Such bondage 

 seems alien to her free spirit; she should be broadening her wings to the blast 

 above the rolling seas or soaring higher than the silent mountain peaks. I 

 find it equally hard to imagine a brooding Owl. The bird has an aloofness 

 about him that would seem to discourage family ties, yet Owls bring forth 

 their young in due season — strange caricatures of their progenitors, dignified 

 of mien but ridiculous in aspect, Solons in swaddling clothes. 



I do not like to malign the Owl, for I have more than a sneaking fondness 

 for him, but there is a subtle relationship between the Owl and the pussy cat, 

 which was recognized by the gentleman who sent them to sea in a beautiful 

 pea green boat. Have you ever seen an Owl in a rage? With eyes half shut 

 and ears laid flat to his head he hisses with all the rasping fury of a fighting 

 Tom, and were it not for the frequent snapping of his mandibles he might well 

 pass for the cat's familiar. It was not without reason that a witch rode her 

 broomstick with an Owl on her shoulder and a Tom cat perched behind. 



Last spring a teamster brought me a young Screech Owl which he had 

 rescued from the center of a village road, where, indifferent to his danger, the 

 Owlet watched the feet of the approaching horses. During the week that he 

 was a member of our household we became greatly attached to him, though 

 beyond a friendly indifference he did not manifest any affection in return. 

 There was something eerie about him, however, so that when a friend discovered 

 his presence between the clock and a vase upon our mantlepiece she was 

 frightened, and when he began to wave his head to and fro, shifting his weight 

 from one foot to another and changing the focus of his yellow eyes, she fled. 

 This ability to increase or decrease the size of the pupils, regardless of a differ- 

 ence in light, is a peculiarity that I have noted in three species of Owls, the 

 Screech Owl, the Barred Owl, and the Great Horned Owl. The ability seems 

 to be voluntary, for I have seen the pupils of all three species change in size 

 when food was offered for close-range inspection, and I have observed, in the 

 case of the Screech Owl and the Great Horned Owl, the pupil of one eye 

 change without relation to the pupil of the other; this difference, when suddenly 

 effected, gives the Owl a very uncanny appearance. 



