460 ON THE BURROWING OWL, 



mingo, (Haiti), where the burrowing owl is known to be an inhabitant 

 as well as about the neighbouring Continent of Central America. I 

 shall beg leave to transcribe the note I made in these travels, in which 

 you will find other incidents respecting the bird in question, hitherto 

 unnoticed, but deserving to be recorded. 



" During my travels I had frequent opportunities of observing the 

 habits of the burrowing owl, (Strix cunicularia) ; my attention was 

 first drawn to it by its invariable habit when emerging from its burrow 

 of rapidly hopping, or rather jumping two or three paces, then stopping 

 short and bobbing down. The effect of this coming forth, very much 

 reminds a person familiar with the theatre of the hasty shuffling sort of 

 run with which dancers start out from the side scenes, and make the 

 bow with which they prelude their intended ballet. A careless unob- 

 servant person might pass unnoticed this curious habit in the case of 

 a single bird, — but, should he chance to see the attitudinising of a 

 pair of owls dodging out from two neighbouring burrows at the same 

 moment, the effect of posturing first to the right, and then to the left, 

 and bowing simultaneously like a couple stepping out to a minuet, is 

 so truly grotesque, that he is not likely to be otherwise than forcibly 

 struck with it. It is said, indeed, as a joke on the Haitiens, whose 

 national dance, the charraibine, is a posture dance, mingling the lubri- 

 city of the waltz with the stately courteousness of the minuet, that 

 Dessalines, who first brought it into vogue, owed the happy thought 

 of adopting it as the national ballet to the casual sight of a pair of 

 burrowing owls posturing in this way. I must confess, whether it be 

 mere satire or not, the resemblance is very great between them. 



" To return, however, to the habit of owls ; before I was aware that 

 this owl burrowed in the ground, I had been struck with excavations in 

 the low earthy cliffs about the ravines and hillocks of the country, 

 particularly of the prairies or savannas, which much resembled rabbit 

 holes, and concluded that they were the haunts of the agouti ( Dasy- 

 procta acuti) ; knowing that this was the only large animal of the 

 Rodentia order here, likely to dig such a hole, but not considering that 

 this particular rodent did not excavate a burrow, but contented itself 

 with hollowed rocks, and niches of fallen trees. The casual meeting 

 with a large egg translucid as alabaster, at the mouth of one of these 

 excavations, and the scattered feathers of some of the smaller birds 

 with which I was familiar, soon taught me, however, that these were 

 habitations of the burrowing owl. At Fort-Dauphin, when the waters 

 of its splendid basin sweep into loose low cliffs of zoophitic marl, and 



