NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY, OR OWLS. 113 
3 or 4 first quills. Thus provided, like the insidious 
assassin, with a noiseless and easy approach, sallying out 
under cover of the approaching shades of night, sacred 
to repose, he snatches the dormant bird from its perch, 
and turns the music of the grove into wailing and 
silence, consonant with his own malignant destiny and 
boding cries. Like the Hawks, his powerful talons are 
the arms with which he makes the fatal sweep amongst 
his prey ; it is only when greatly pressed by hunger that 
he deigns to feed on dead animals ; and his drink is 
rarely ever other than the blood of his victims, and their 
recent juices. The bones, hair, feathers, and hard parts, 
not digestible in the membraneous stomach with which 
alone he is provided, are brought up, and ejected by the 
mouth, in the form of pellets or little balls. In anciently 
settled countries, frugal of labor, they content themselves 
to nest in old towers and ruins, sometimes in the holes 
of hollow trees, or the deserted nests of other ^:ge birds ; 
in this country, decayed trees, as well as raie fissures 
of rocks, and retired barns, are chosen for this purpose ; 
their eggs are from 2 to 6. Their moult takes place 
only once in the year ; and the striking disparities of 
plumage which occur among the Hawks, is generally 
unknown among the Owls. The young, however, before 
their first moult, have usually a darker face than the 
adult, thus appearing as it were masked ; but after 
this period they no longer differ from the old. The 
species are spread all over the northern and temperate 
parts of the globe, and some are common even to both 
hemispheres. 
10 * 
