94 GREAT HORNED OWL. 
ochre, some of tlie latter have central spots of dark hro^yn, the whole 
tipped with white ; quills also banded with dark brown and yellow 
ochre ; breast and belly streaked with dark brown, on a ground of yel- 
lowish ; legs, thighs and vent, plain dull yellow ; tips of the three first 
quill feathers black ; legs clothed to the claws, which are black, curved 
to about the quarter of a circle, and exceedingly sharp. 
The female I have never seen ; but she is said to be someAvhat larger 
and much darker ; and the spots on the breast larger and more 
numerous. 
Species VIII. STRIX VIRGINIANA. 
GREAT HORNED OWL. 
[Plate L. Fig. 1.] 
Arct. Zool. p. 228, No. 114.— Ed w. GO.— Lath, i., 119.— Turt. Sijst. p. 106.* 
The figure of this bird, as well as of those represented in the same 
plate, is reduced to one-half its natural dimensions. By the same scale, 
the greater part of the Hawks and Owls of the present volumef are 
drawn i their real magnitude rendering this unavoidable. 
This noted and formidable Owl is found in almost every quarter of 
the United States. His favorite residence, however, is in the dark 
solitudes of deep swamps, covered with a growth of gigantic timber ; 
and here, as soon as evening draws on, and mankind retire to rest, he 
sends foi-th such sounds, as seem scarcely to belong to this world, start- 
ling the solitary pilgrim as he slumbers by his forest fire, 
" Makinfr ni^ht hideous." 
Along the mountainous shores of the Ohio, and amidst the deep forests 
of Indiana, alone, and reposing in the woods, this ghostly watchman 
frequently warned me of the approach of morning, and amused me with 
his singular exclamations ; sometimes sweeping down and around my 
fire, uttering a loud and sudden Waugh 01 Waugh 0! sufficient to 
have alarmed a whole garrison. He has other nocturnal solos, no less 
melodious, one of which very strikingly resembles the half-suppressed 
screams of a person suffocating, or throttled, and cannot fail of being 
* We add the followinj; synonymes : Hihou des Terres Magellaniques, Buff. PI. 
Enl. 385. — Biiho Virginiainis, Briss. i., p. 484. — Strix Virginiana, Ind. p. 52. — 
Gmel. Si/st. I., p. 287. — Virginian Eared Owl, Lath. Gen. Sgn. Supl.Yi., p. 40. 
t Volume YI. of the orij^inal edition. 
