246 
OWLS. 
habits of the different species, and from the few 
collections which contain a large series of speci- 
mens ; while, in a group of birds which evidently 
possesses a very acute sense of healing to assist in 
securing their sustenance, the ears must shew some 
peculiarities of formation which, in dried or stuffed 
skins, can scarcely be examined with satisfaction. 
In seeking for the typical species, we must exa- 
mine those parts of their form which are most 
subservient to their wants as nocturnal preying 
birds ; and it is in the organs of sight and hearing, 
and their accessaries, where they chiefly vary from 
their representatives of the day. The eyes, in 
those species which appear to have the senses of 
hearing and seeing most developed, are large, sur- 
rounded by a bony ring capable of expansion and 
compression, and they are placed in a large con- 
cave disk, like a lamp in the centre of a reflector. 
In the day, the birds remain in a state of repose 
in some dark retreat, and there take the rest which 
others enjoy during the night; but, on the ap- 
proach of twilight, their morning, as it were, com- 
mences, and they then display an activity which has 
not always been reconciled with their apparently, 
at other times, stupid appearance ; and during this 
time, we have every reason to believe that, from 
the provisions of their form, their vision is as acute 
at a short distance, as that of the Falcons, but 
that it is not very extended, which, indeed, from 
