94 



THE OWL. 



self but for all his family, and it therefore be- 

 came a point of honor that the Pharaoh's wishes 

 should be complied with at once. It is related 

 that on one occasion the victim, having shown 

 <i;reat reluctance to dispose of his own life, was 

 put to death by one of his parents, and so the 

 lionor of his relative was saved. 



Many are tlie accounts of sickness, and even 

 death, having followed the sudden appearance of 

 Owls in places where they were never known 

 before, and the boding cry, which the bird no 

 doubt deemed sweetest of songs, has always been 

 heard witli fear and aversion. Yet no creature is 

 more harmless. 



Happily, in these enlightened days, much of 

 the superstition connected with these feathered 



creatures is disappearing, and they are regarded 

 more in their true light of useful scavengers that 

 destroy much vermin, and free the fields from 

 many destructive pests, than as heralds of mis- 

 fortune and woe. The early writers and poets 

 associated our wise-looking friends with disasters 

 of some sort, but later ones, more in keeping 

 witii the spirit of their times, have sung of them 

 as birds of the night in harmony with other 

 creatures. Thus Coleridge, in an opening chorus 

 in Christabel, says : 



" 'Tis the middle of the night by the Castle clock, 

 And the Owls have awakened the Crowing cock, 

 Tu-whit ! Tu-whoo 1 — 

 And hark again ! the crowing Cock, 

 How drowsily he crew.'" 



