THE BARN OWt. 
9 
*« Crying, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, 
Hoo, hoo, hoo, my feet are cold ! 
Pity me, for here you see me, 
Persecuted, poor, and old." 
I beg the reader s pardon for this exordium. I 
have introduced it, in order to show how little 
chance there has been, from days long passed and 
gone to the present time, of studying the haunts 
and economy of the owl, because its unmerited bad 
name has created it a host of foes, and doomed 
it to destruction from all quarters. Some few, 
certainly, from time to time, have been kept in 
cages and in aviaries. But nature rarely thrives in 
captivity, and very seldom appears in her true 
character when she is encumbered with chains, or 
is to be looked at by the passing crowd through 
bars of iron. However, the scene is now going to 
change; and I trust that the reader will contem- 
plate the owl with more friendly feelings, and quite 
under different circumstances. Here, no rude 
schoolboy ever approaches its retreat ; and those 
who once dreaded its diabolical doings are now 
fully satisfied that it no longer meddles with their 
destinies, or has any thing to do with the repose of 
their departed friends. Indeed, human wretches, 
I in the shape of body-snatchers, seem here in Eng- 
I land to have usurped the office of the owl in our 
churchyards ; " et vendunt tumulis corpora rapta 
I suis.*' 
i Up to the year 1813, the barn owl had a sad 
i time of it at Walton Hall. Its supposed mournful 
