Of this numerous family, there are a great variety of species; but
nearly all steal forth at night, preying upon such birds and quadrupeds
as they can master. They are spread over the northern portions of both
continents, and appear in all minds to be associated with ideas of
melancholy and gloom. The owl was anciently an emblem of wisdom; but we
have no evidence that it possesses sagacity in any degree superior to
that of any other member of the feathered family.
Mr. Nuttall gives us the following description of a red owl: "I took
him out of a hollow apple-tree, and kept him several months. A dark
closet was his favorite retreat during the day; in the evening he
became very lively, gliding across the room with a side-long, restless
flight, blowing with a hissing noise, stretching out his neck in a
threatening manner, and snapping with his bill. He was a very expert
mouse-catcher, swallowed his prey whole, and afterwards ejected the
bones, skin, and hair, in round balls. He also devoured large flies. He
never showed any inclination to drink."
The little owl has a cry, when flying, like _poopoo_. Another note,
which it utters sitting, appears so much like the human voice calling
out, _Aime aime edme_, that it deceived one of Buffon's servants, who
lodged in one of the old turrets of a castle; and waking him up at
three o'clock in the morning with this singular cry, the man opened the
window, and called out, "Who's there below? My name is not Edme, but
Peter!"
A carpenter, passing through a field near Gloucester, England, was
attacked by a barn owl that had a nest of young ones in a tree near the
path. The bird flew at his head; and the man, striking at it with a
tool he had in his hand, missed his blow, upon which the owl repeated
the attack, and, with her talons fastened on his face, tore out one of
his eyes, and scratched him in the most shocking manner.
A gentleman in Yorkshire, having observed the scales of fishes in the
nest of a couple of barn owls that lived in the neighborhood of a lake,
was induced, one moonlight night, to watch their motions, when he was
surprised to see one of the old birds plunge into the water and seize a
perch, which it bore to its young ones.
A party of Scottish Highlanders, in the service of the Hudson's Bay
Company, happened, in a winter journey, to encamp, after nightfall, in
a dense clump of trees, whose dark tops and lofty stems, the growth of
centuries, gave a solemnity to the scene that strongly tended to excite
the superstitious feelings of the Highlanders. The effect was
heightened by the discovery of a tomb, which, with a natural taste
often exhibited by the Indians, had been placed in this secluded spot.
Our travellers, having finished their supper, were trimming their fire
preparatory to retiring to rest, when the slow and dismal notes of the
horned owl fell on the ear with a startling nearness. None of them
being acquainted with the sound, they at once concluded that so
unearthly a voice must be the moaning of the spirit of the departed,
whose repose they supposed they had disturbed by inadvertently making a
fire of some of the wood of which his tomb had been constructed. They
passed a tedious night of fear, and with the first dawn of day, hastily
quitted the ill-omened spot.
Genghis Khan, who was founder of the empire of the Mogul Tartars, being
defeated, and having taken shelter from his enemies, owed his
preservation to a snowy owl, which was perched over the bush in which
he was hid, in a small coppice. His pursuers, on seeing this bird,
never thought it possible he could be near it. Genghis in consequence
escaped, and ever afterwards this bird was held sacred by his
countrymen, and every one wore a plume of its feathers on his head.