260 GREAT HORNED OWL. 



By the same scale the greater part of the hawks and owls of 

 the present volume are drawn, their real magnitude render- 

 ing this unavoidable. 



attention so long as the animal remains in sight. When first perceived, 

 the feathers are raised and the wings lowered as when feeding, and the 

 head moved round, following the ohject while in sight : if food is thrown, 

 it will be struck with the foot and held, hut no further attention paid 

 to it. 



The Virginian owl seems to he very extensively distributed over 

 America, is tolerably common over every part of the continent, and Mr 

 Swainson has seen specimens from the tableland of Mexico. The 

 southern specimens present only a brighter colouring in the rufous parts 

 of the plumage. 



According to all authorities, owls have been regarded as objects of 

 superstition ; and this has sometimes been taken advantage of by the 

 well-informed for purposes far from what ought to be the duty of a 

 better education to inculcate. None are more accessible to such super- 

 stitions than the primitive natives of Ireland and the north of Scotland. 

 Dr Richardson thus relates an instance, which came to his own know- 

 ledge, of the consequences arising from a visit of this nocturnal wanderer. 



" A party of Scottish Highlanders, in the service of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, happened, in a winter journey, to encamp after nightfall 

 in a dense clump of trees, whose dark tops and lofty stems, the growth 

 of more than one century, gave a solemnity to the scene that strongly 

 tended to excite the superstitious feelings of the Highlanders. The 

 effect was heightened by the discovery of a tomb, which, with a natural 

 taste often exhibited by the Indians, had been placed in this secluded 

 spot. Our travellers having finished their supper, were trimming their 

 fire preparatory to retiring to rest, when the slow and dismal notes of 

 the horned owl fell on the ear with a startling nearness. None of them 

 being acquainted with the sound, they at once concluded that so 

 unearthly a voice must be the moaning of the spirit of the departed, 

 whose repose they supposed they had disturbed by inadvertently 

 making a fire of some of the wood of which his tomb had been con- 

 structed. They passed a tedious night of fear, and, with the first dawn 

 of day, hastily quitted the ill-omened spot." 



In India there is a large owl, known by the native name of Googoo, 

 or Ooloo, which, according to some interesting notices, accompanying a 

 large box of birds sent to Mr Selby from the vicinity of Hyderabad, is 

 held as an object of both fear and veneration. " If an Ooloo should 

 alight on the house of a Hindoo, he would leave it immediately, take 

 the thatch off, and put fresh on. The eyes and brain are considered an 

 infallible cure for fits in children, and both are often given to women 





