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, Aimé aimé edmé, 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 Edmé, 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.
ORDER II.