The American Barn Owl 



Taken in San Luis Obispo County 



A 'DOBE NESTING CLIFF 



Photo by the Author 



But consider, I pray, the merits of the Barn Owl. She is on duty 

 365 nights in the year. Rising punctually when the sun is well set, she 

 sallies forth to review and regulate her realm with tireless diligence. 

 Softer than silk, or than any similitude, are her aerial fioatings. All 

 gentle things trust her, and none save mischief-makers have aught to 

 fear from her gentle sway. 



As for her beauty, who may say that in her robes of white, overlaid 

 with filmiest laces of the dusk and set out with burnishings of ochraceous 

 gold, she is not, indeed, the fairest of night birds, and entitled as such 

 to unbroken rule? Though the populace hoots, as it always has, when 

 confronted with claims which it does not understand, and dishonors this 

 gentle bird with such a vulgar name as "Monkey-faced Owl," on those 

 occasions, fortunately rare, when our heroine is dragged forth into the 

 disabling light of day, we insist that this is Beauty's self, and Aphrodite's 

 double, appointed for the rulership of Night. 



But when the "Night-bird" sings — ah, there is pause, food for medita- 

 tion and regret. For, like the lordly peacock, bird of Juno, the Barn Owl 



1072 



