“C’est un fait curieux que l’homme s’acharne tout particulièrement à detruire ses meillures amis, et qu’il poursuive de ses malédictions les êtres qui le servent le mieux. Je joindrai donc ma faible voix à celle de bien d’autres naturalistes pour demander que l’on protége les premières de ces bêtes.
“Les hibous et les chouettes, bien loin de jeter de mauvais sorts sur nos demeures, prennent au contraire, un grand soin de nos intérêts. Ces oiseaux exterminent, en effet, bien plus de souris que n’en pourront prendre jamais les meilleurs taupiers. Les buses n’ont nullement mérité leur place sur la porte de nos granges, et plutôt que de les tuer, l’on ferait bien mieux d’établir chez nous, comme cela s’est fait avec succès dans certaines localités, de hauts perchoirs dans nos campagnes pour attirer ces oiseaux bienfaisants.”
A CURIOUS TRADITION.
Among the many curious legends which exist with reference to this bird, we may mention one to which Shakespeare has alluded in Hamlet:—
“They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.”
Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5.
Mr. Staunton, in his edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, says this has reference to a tradition still current in some parts of England. “Our Saviour went into a baker’s shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it considerably in size. The dough, however, immediately afterwards began to swell, and presently became of an enormous size. Whereupon the baker’s daughter cried out, ‘Wheugh! wheugh! wheugh!’ which owl-like noise, it is said, probably induced our Saviour, for her wickedness, to transform her into that bird.”
Mr. Douce represents this story as still current amongst the common people in Gloucestershire.[57] According to
Nuttall, the north country nurses would have it that the owl was a daughter of Pharaoh, and when they heard it hoot on a winter’s night, they sang to the wondering child—
“Oh! ŏ ŏ ŏ, ō ō;
I once was a king’s daughter, and sat on my father’s knee,