8 
THE BARN OWL. 
Lucan, too, has hit it hard : — 
** Et Isetsd jurantur aves, bubone sinistro :" 
and the Englishman who continued the Pharsalia 
says, — 
Tristia mille locis Stygius dedit omina bubo. " 
Horace tells us, that the old witch Canidia used 
part of the plumage of the owl in her dealings with 
the devil : — 
" Plumamque nocturne strigis.'* 
Virgil, in fine, joined in the hue and cry against 
this injured family : — 
" Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo 
Saepe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces." 
In our own times we find that the village maid 
cannot return home from seeing her dying swain^ 
without a doleful salutation from the owl : — 
Thus homeward as she hopeless went, 
The churchyard path along, 
The blast grew cold, the dark owl scream'd 
Her lover's funeral song." 
Amongst the numberless verses which might be 
quoted against the family of the owl, I think I only 
know of one little ode which expresses any pity for 
it. Our nursery maid used to sing it to the tune of 
the storm, " Cease rude Boreas, blustering railer.'' 
I remember the first two stanzas of it : — 
" Once I was a monarch's daughter. 
And sat on a lady's knee ; 
But am now a nightly rover, 
Banish'd to the ivy tree, 
