Class II. EAGLE OWL. 255 



thered game. Its appearance in cities was 

 deemed an milucky omen ; Rome itself once 

 underwent a lustration, because one of them 

 strayed into the Capitol. The antients had 

 them in the utmost abhorrence, and thought 

 them, like the screech owls, the messengers of ' 

 death. Pliny styles it Bubo funehis et noctis 

 monstrum. 



Solaque culminihiis ferali carmine Bubo 

 Scepe queri et longas infietum ducere voces. 



Virgil. 



Perch'd on the roof the bird of night complains. 

 In lengthen'd shrieks, and dire funereal strains. 



In size it is almost equal to an eagle. The Descrip- 

 irides are bright yellow ; the head and whole 

 body finely varied with lines, spots and specks of 

 black, brown, cinereous, and ferruginous; the 

 wings are long; the tail short, marked with 

 dusky bars ; the legs thick, covered to the very 

 end of the toes with a close and full down of a 

 testaceous color j the claws great, much hooked 

 and dusky."^ -• - "'' ' ,^^^ ... .. "^^ ;.;^ ..^^^, 



*' The female lays two eggs the size of thos^ 

 of a hen, and white. ^. J^ Lj, .„,^ ...,, I 



TION. 



VOL. I. 



