A favourite in falconry.
Of the Pygmy Falcons there are several species, ranging from the Eastern Himalaya, through Tenasserim and Burma, to the Malay Islands and the Philippines. The smallest is the Red-legged Falconet of Nepal, Sikhim, and Burma. It feeds largely upon insects, such as dragon-flies, beetles, and butterflies, hawking them with a swallow-like speed. Occasionally the members of this little group are said to hunt down and kill birds larger than themselves.
OWLS.
Few birds have been more misrepresented in literature than the Owls. For centuries they have been depicted as birds of ill omen, and accused of all kinds of diabolical practices. Shakespeare, for example, repeatedly makes the owl do duty for some evil sign, or fulfil some dire purpose. Thus in Macbeth, Act II., Scene ii.,
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night.
And later on, in Act IV., it is an owl's wing which he makes the witches add to their caldron of noisome things, when brewing their deadly potion. In Spain the scops and tawny owls are believed to be devil's birds, and are accused of drinking the oil from the lamps suspended before the shrines of saints. The gamekeeper nails their bodies up on the barn door as offenders of the worst type, whilst the Malagasy believe owls to be the embodiments of evil spirits.
Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.
SPECTACLED OWL.