Though their unlovely aspect and solitary mode of life may in some measure account for the prejudice and suspicion with which the owl, crow, raven, and one or two other birds have always been regarded, there are undoubtedly other and more subtle reasons for their unpopularity.
The ancients without exception credited these birds with psychic properties.
"Ignarres bubo dirum mortalibus omen," said Ovid; whilst speaking of the fatal prognostications of the crow Virgil wrote:
"Saepe sinistra cava praedixit ab ilice cornix."
A number of crows are stated to have fluttered about Cicero's head on the day he was murdered.
Pliny says, "These birds, crows and rooks, all of them keep much prattling, and are full of chat, which most men take for an unlucky sign and presage of ill-fortune."
Ramesay, in his work Elminthologia (1688), writes:
"If a crow fly over the house and croak thrice, how do they fear they, or someone else in the family, shall die."
The bittern is also a bird of ill omen. Alluding to this bird, Bishop Hall once said:
"If a bittern flies over this man's head by night, he will make his will"; whilst Sir Humphry Davy wrote: