But now I’m a poor hoolet, and hide in a hollow tree.”
There is much difference of opinion amongst naturalists as to whether the power of hooting and shrieking is possessed by the same species. In the following passage from Julius Cæsar (Act i. Sc. 3), both sounds are attributed to the same bird:—
“Yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noonday, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking.”
It is generally supposed that the common barn or white owl does not hoot, but only shrieks, and is, in fact, the bird always alluded to as the “screech-owl,” while the brown owls (Strix otus, brachyotus, and aluco) are the hooters—
“The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots.”
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii. Sc. 2.
But Mr. Colquhoun, speaking of the white or barn owl, says,[58] “It does hoot, but very rarely. I heard one six times in succession, and then it ceased.” Sir William
Jardine once shot a white owl in the act of hooting; and Mr. Boulton, of Beverley, Yorkshire, describes[59] the note of one of these birds which he had reared from the nest, and kept in confinement for fifteen months, as follows:—“It does hoot exactly like the long-eared owl, but not so frequently. I use the term ‘hoot’ in contradistinction to ‘screech,’ which it often does when irritated.”