August 1947 The Queensland Naturalist 
69 
plumage was in great demand throughout the East and 
Europe, its price being paid in pearls or slaves. One 
explanation was that the birds became intoxicated on nut- 
megs, and ants ate their legs as they lay helpless on the 
ground. 
No real evidence can be advanced against the unfor- 
tunate owl. Here is a selection of epithets hurled at its 
head by t lie poetic fraternity — “The ill-faced owle, 
Death’s dreadful messenger,’’ “shrieking harbinger,” 
“boding owl,” “gloom bird," “moody owl,” “deadlie 
screech-owl.” There can be no doubt that the bird’s dis- 
pleasing call and the mere fact that it proceeded on its 
lawful occasions at night, prejudiced people against it. 
Many were the tales told of the owl as a bird of ill— omen. 
The death of Emperor Valentinian was presaged by an 
owl which sat upon the top of the house in which he used 
to bathe, and would not leave its station though stones 
were thrown at it. Julius Obsequens in his Hook of 
Prodigies shows that “a short time before the deatli of 
Pommodus an owl was observed to sit upon the top of his 
Chamber, both at Rome and Sanuvium. In 1.742 comes 
a report from Wirtzberg in Franconia that “this unlucky 
bird by his screeching songs affrighted the citizens a long 
time together and immediately followed a great plague, 
war and other calamities.” In England not so very long 
ago for an owl to brush past the windows of a house meant 
that death or great misfortune would overtake one of the 
inmates. For the poets, of course, it is enough to say that 
“owl” rhymes with “foul.” 
There is a legend that the owl was once a baker’s 
daughter. The story runs that Christ went into a baker’s 
shop and asked for bread. The mistress put dough into 
the oven, but the daughter scolded her for using too much 
and took a good deal away. When she brought the tiny 
bun to Christ it grew and grew and in her amazement she 
cried, “Heugh, Ileugh,” like an owl, whereupon Jesus 
turned her into that bird. This story is sometimes trans- 
ferred to the busy woodpecker. 
In Germany they will tell you that he is a baker, who 
in the ease of his counting house starved the poor, 
deceived them, and gave them false weight. And now. as 
a punishment, he works, and must work till the Day of 
Judgment, living on insects alone. 
References to the kingfisher as the halycon are many. 
