GREAT HORNED OWL, OR CAT OWL. 125 
of American birds. The aboriginal inhabitants of the 
country dread his boding howl, dedicating his effigies to 
their solemnities, and, as if he were their sacred bird of 
Minerva, forbid the mockery of his ominous, dismal, and 
almost supernatural cries. His favorite resort, in the dark 
and impenetrable swampy forests, where he dwells in 
chosen solitude secure from the approach of every enemy, 
agrees with the melancholy and sinister traits of his char- 
acter. To the surrounding feathered race he is the Pluto 
of the gloomy wilderness, and would scarcely be known 
out of the dismal shades where he hides, but to his victims, 
were he as silent as he is solitary. Among the choaking, 
loud, guttural sounds which he sometimes utters, in the 
dead of night, and with a suddenness which always 
alarms, because of his noiseless approach, is the 5 waugh 
ho ! ’ waugh ho ! which, Wilson remarks, was often ut- 
tered at the instant of sweeping down around his camp 
fire. Many kinds of owls are similarly dazzled and at- 
tracted by fire-lights, and occasionally finding, no doubt, 
some offal or flesh, thrown out by those who encamp in 
the wilderness, they come round the nocturnal blaze 
with other motives than barely those of curiosity. The 
solitary travellers in these wilds, apparently scanning the 
sinister motive of his visits, pretend to interpret his ad- 
dress into “’Who ’ cooks for you dll!” and with a 
strong guttural pronunciation of the final syllable, to all 
those who have heard this his common cry, the resem- 
blance of sound is well hit, and instantly recalls the 
ghastly serenade of his nocturnal majesty in a manner 
which is not easily forgotten. The shorter cry, which we 
have mentioned, makes no inconsiderable approach to that 
uttered by the European brother of our species, as given 
by Buffon, namely, * he-hoo , ? hoo-hoo , boo-hoo, &,c. The 
Greeks called this transatlantic species Byas, either 
IT 
