cette tm ome BION: aD Ula Hels TN 15 
Who Dat up Dere? 
By ERMA DEANE PILZ 
THE OLD JAMESTOWN church tower, until recently thought to be the 
only remaining structural evidence of the first permanent English colony in 
the New World, is well worth the pilgrimage by a tourist in the Virginia 
tidewater area. I visited the building primarily because of its historical 
significance, and accidentally learned of an ornithological tale that was 
more amusing than the Pocahontas-John Smith story, though hardly as 
epochal. 
It was while our Negro guide was giving his usual talk as he con- 
ducted a group of tourists through the church and adjoining graveyard 
that I looked up to observe that a considerable part of the ancient vines 
had been cut away from the ruins of the once ivy-covered church tower. 
The guide casually remarked that this had been done to preserve the re- 
maining bricks and mortar. A question or two, after the group had left, 
brought the information that since the bricks had been made on the site 
and baked much harder than modern bricks, and the lime, burned from the 
oyster shells of the inlet, had hardened the mortar through the years to 
something far less destructible than the cement work added later, the 
English ivy had at no time been a threat to the preservation of the tower. 
But, the guide explained, the ivy tangle on the crest of the ruins had be- 
come a roosting-place for a family of barn owls, and when the tourists 
reached the tower and the solemn Negro pointed dramatically up to the 
often-defended gun slits, this, in the words of the guide, is what took place: 
“Dey looks up. Dem li’l ole monkey-face owl look down. Dey stare at 
each othah, and nobody hears what Ah got to say!” 
So the barn owls were graduated from their “halls of ivy” by the 
demolition of their traditional dormitory. I can only hope that the owls, 
being such wise birds, have flown on to more hospitable institutions in 
pursuit of their higher learning. 
10321 Prospect Ave., Chicago 
aI ft om 
Screen Tours to Come 
THE LAST TWO LECTURES of the 1950-51 series of Audubon Screen Tours 
will be presented by two favorite story-tellers, well known to previous 
audiences of the Society: 
Sunday, March 18, at 2:30 p.m.: Dr. Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., Minnesota 
ornithologist and nature writer, portrays the unique character of the wild 
life and landscape of that seldom-visited region, the interior of the Black 
Hills of the Dakotas. 
Wednesday, April 18, at 8:00 p.m.: Bert Harwell, popular lecturer, takes 
us on a tour of wilderness and mountain areas in the Canadian National 
Parks. Here we find the last remnants of bird and animal species that 
were once common, but are now rare or even unknown in the United States. 
All members and friends of the Society are invited to come again to 
James Simpson Theater of the Chicago Natural History Museum. 
