HORNED OWLS
“We have glanced in a cursory way at a number of our rodents that are
harmful to crops. I pass over in silence the pretty squirrel, a lover
of walnuts and beechnuts, and the industrious beaver, an animal which
may still be found, here and there, along the Rhone. The hare and the
rabbit, too, I willingly give over to the hunter’s rifle. What
protection have we from the devouring hunger of the others—the rats,
the field-mice, and the meadow-mice? How are we to hold them in check?
In our homes we have the cat; outside we have the army of feathered
cats—the nocturnal birds of prey. I will divide these latter into two
classes, to make it easier to distinguish the various species. One has
the head adorned with two tufts of feathers—plumicorns is the term
sometimes used—while the other class lacks this ornament. Horned owls
come under the first classification; hornless owls, or those that may
be called simply owls, come under the second.
“The largest of the horned owls is the eagle-owl. ‘It can easily be
recognized,’ says Buffon, ‘by its burly form, its enormous head, its
large and cavernous ears, the two egrets surmounting its head to a
height of more than two inches and a half, its short hooked beak, black
in color, its great clear eyes with their fixed gaze and large black
pupils, encircled by an orange-colored ruff of feathers, and its face
surrounded by hairs—or, rather, little rudimentary white feathers
bordering a ring of other little feathers that are curled—also by its
black hooked claws of great strength, its very short neck, its reddish
brown plumage spotted with black and yellow on the back, its feet
covered with thick down and reddish feathers to the very roots of the
nails, and, finally, its hair-raising cry of whee-hoo, hoo-hoo,
hoo-hoo, poo-hoo, which it sends forth in the silence of the night when
all the rest of the world is still. Then it is that it awakens its
intended victims, fills them with vague alarm, pursues and catches
them, and carries them off to the caverns where it has its
hiding-place. It lives among the rocks or in old deserted towers in the
mountains, rarely descending into the plains and never willingly
perching on trees, but rather on the roof of some sequestered church or
ancient castle. Its favorite prey consists of young hares, little
rabbits, field-mice, and rats, of which it digests the fleshy substance
and throws up the hair, bones, and skin in round balls. The eagle-owl
makes its nest in some rocky cave or in a hole in some lofty old wall.
Its nest is nearly three feet in diameter, and is made of small dry
branches interwoven with flexible roots and padded with leaves inside.
Only one or two, or rarely as many as three, eggs are found in this
nest. In color they somewhat resemble the bird’s plumage, and in size
they are larger than hens’ eggs.’”
“Those two things like horns that the eagle-owl has on its head—are
they ears?” asked Emile.
“No, my boy, they are egrets, upstanding feathers that give the bird a
warlike appearance. Its ears are not visible, being hidden by the
plumage. They are very large and deep, which explains why the
eagle-owl’s hearing is so wonderfully acute.”
“The eagle-owl,” Louis here observed, “eats field-mice and rats, for
which it is to be thanked; but it also eats young hares and young
rabbits. Isn’t that a pity?”
“For the hunter, I admit; but for the farmer it is quite another thing.
Don’t forget that the hare and the rabbit belong to the order of
rodents; they have incisors which spare nothing in the fields. If they
were left to breed in peace they would prove a serious menace to our
crops. History tells of countries so ravaged by rabbits that it became
necessary to send an army to help the inhabitants get rid of them. We
shall never reach that condition, I am sure; but it is no cause for
regret that the eagle-owl, jointly with the hunter, keeps the animals
within tolerable bounds. Moreover, the bird is very scarce everywhere.
One pair of these birds in a year is the most that you will find in the
mountains about here. An extensive hunting-ground is required by such
big eaters if they are not to starve one another out.
“I have a more serious complaint to bring against the eagle-owl: when
it cannot find its favorite game—meadow-mice, field-mice, and rats—it
contents itself with bats, snakes, toads, lizards, and frogs, and thus
deprives us of some of our best protectors. Be assured, once for all,
that while we have some irreproachable helpers, there are also others
that from our point of view are guilty of a good many misdeeds. Bear in
mind the mole, which throws up the earth and cuts the roots of plants
in its war on insects. No animal gives a moment’s thought to man—except
the dog, who is our friend even more than he is our servant. No other
pays any heed to our interests; all work for themselves and their
young. If their instinct prompts them to destroy only species harmful
to us, so much the better: they are excellent helpers; but if they hunt
both harmful and helpful species, we must balance the total good
against the total harm that they do. If the good tips the scale, let us
respect the animal: it is a helper. If it does more harm than good, let
us declare war on the creature: it is a ravager. The eagle-owl catches
in the fields such formidable hoarders of grain as field-mice and
hamsters; in gardens, dormice and other lovers of fruit; in the
neighborhood of our houses, ordinary mice and rats, and even the
horrible Norway rat. There you have the plea for the defendant. On the
other hand, the hunter charges the bird with killing a certain number
of young rabbits incautiously taking a taste or two of wild thyme by
moonlight, and with appropriating a few young hares that would
otherwise be eaten by human beings. For my part, I accuse it of feeding
its young on the serviceable toad, the useful snake, and the
cricket-eating lizard. There you have the prosecutor’s charge. But, the
balance being struck, the bird’s services are found to outweigh its
misdeeds, and I declare that the eagle-owl deserves well of the
farmer.”
“It is a unanimous verdict,” declared Jules.
“The common horned owl, or lesser eagle-owl,” Uncle Paul continued, “is
much like the bird we have been discussing, only it is far smaller,
being very little larger than a crow, while the other is the size of a
goose. It is the commonest of all the nocturnal birds of prey in these
regions. In the night hours throughout the summer it keeps repeating,
in melancholy accents, its long-drawn and doleful cry of cloo-cloo,
which can be heard a long way off. Just as it takes flight it gives a
sort of bitter sigh, made no doubt by the air expelled from its lungs
by the effort of the wings at the moment of flying off. In the daytime,
confronted by human beings, this bird wears a dazed and foolish
expression. It snaps its beak, stamps its feet, and moves its big head
abruptly up and down and from side to side. If attacked by too strong
an enemy, it lies down on its back and threatens its foe with claws and
beak. It inhabits ruined buildings, caves in rocks, and the hollow
trunks of old trees. Seldom does it take the trouble to build a nest of
its own, preferring to patch up one that has been deserted by a magpie
or a buzzard. There it lays four or five round white eggs. I will
remark in passing that the eggs of nocturnal birds of prey are not oval
like hens’ eggs, but more nearly round. The hunting habits of the
horned owl are like those of the eagle-owl: it has the same liking for
rodents such as field-mice, rats, ordinary mice, and meadow-mice; it
pounces upon young rabbits in the same manner, after patiently watching
for them at the mouth of the burrow. Now let us pass on to another
species.
“The short-horned owl, or large sparrow-owl, resembles the lesser
eagle-owl in plumage and size. The two egrets or plumicorns are very
short, and they seldom stand erect as in the two preceding species.
Because of the shortness of these ‘horns,’ the large sparrow-owl is
often taken for a hornless owl. This species is seldom seen near
dwelling-houses, preferring rocks, quarries, and ruined and solitary
castles. It builds no nest, but is content to lay in a hole in some
wall or rock two or three white eggs, shiny and round, and about as
large as pigeons’ eggs. Its usual cry is goo, uttered rather softly;
but if rain is coming the cry is changed to goyoo. Its diet is mostly
confined to field-mice and meadow-mice.
“The red owl is of about the blackbird’s size. Its plumage is ashy gray
mottled with red and marked with little flecks of black running
lengthwise and fine gray lines running around the body. It is the
smallest and prettiest of our nocturnal birds of prey. When its fine
egrets stand up well on the forehead they give it a bold and martial
air that goes well with its eagerness for the chase.”
“In the picture,” Emile pointed out, “its horns are not standing up.”
“No, the bird is represented in one of its peaceful moments; there is
nothing to arouse it, nothing to attract its attention. It has
withdrawn into itself and is thinking of the fine feast it had when it
last went hunting. It is digesting that feast. But let a mouse come and
scratch anywhere near, and the red owl immediately ruffles its
forehead—the first sign of attention. It straightens up and spreads out
its egrets—a sign of the closest possible attention. It has heard, it
has understood. Off darts the bird and the mouse is caught.
“The smaller rodents are its delight. It seasons them with beetles and
June-bugs—especially the latter which are an aid to digestion. When
larger game is lacking it contents itself with a frugal meal of
insects, hoping to make up for it soon with a good dinner of
meadow-mice.
“Red owls are great travelers. They assemble in companies, sometimes to
migrate for the winter and seek a warmer clime, sometimes to search out
a district where there is plenty of game, when their present haunts no
longer offer enough to suffice them. If field-mice are on the increase
in some particular region and are ravaging the fields of grain and hay,
the red owls hear of it, I don’t know how. They spread the glad
tidings, all club together, and start for the lands where feasting
awaits them. With such zeal do they apply themselves to the work of
extermination that in a few weeks the fields are cleared of the
infesting hordes.
“Red owls nest in hollow trees and clefts in rocks. Their eggs, from
two to four in a nest, are of a shiny white.”