and byas, as if he were carried away with
the wind or somewhat else."

In Bartholomeus's De Proprietatibus
Rerum, by Berthelet, is the following: "Of the
Owle, Divynours telle that they betoken
evyll; for if the owle be seen in a citie, it
signifyeth distruccion and waste, as Isidore
sayth. The cryinge of the owle by nyght
tokeneth deathe, as divynours conjecte and
deme," Again: "Alexander Ross informs
us, in his Appendix to the Arcana
Microcosmi, that Lampridius and Marcellinus,
among other prodigies which presaged the
death of Valentinian the emperor, mention
an owle which sate upon the top of the
house when he used to bathe, and could not
thence be driven away with stones. Julius
Obsequens (in his Book of Prodigies) showes
that a little before the death of Commodus
Antoninus the emperor, an owle was observed
to sit upon the top of his chamber, both at
Rome and at Lanuvium. Xiphilinus, speaking
of the prodigies that went before the
death of Augustus, says, the owl sung upon
the top of the Curia" (I should say, lamented).
"He declares that the action was presignified
by the flying of owles in the Temple of
Concord. In the year fifteen hundred and
forty-two" (a long stride from the time of
Augustus), "at Herbipolis, or Wirtzburg, in
Franconia, this unlucky bird by his screeching
songs, affrighted the citizens very much
indeed, and there immediately followed a great
plague, war, and other calamities. About
twenty years ago, I did observe" (this is
Alexander Ross who is now speaking) "that in the
house where I lodged, an owle, groaning in the
window, presaged the death of two eminent
persons, who died there shortly after."

Calumniators having once been found, it was
easy enough for others to follow in the wake
of calumny; and writers went on accusing
the owl of conduct which had its origin only
in their own perverted notions. Even
Shakspeare, a constant reader of Philemon
Holland's Pliny, is not exempt from this fault;
although he atones for it in a place, to which
I shall presently refer. When Lady Macbeth
is expecting tidings of the death of Duncan,
she exclaims:

     It was the owl that shriek'd—the fatal bellman
     That gives the stern'st good-night.

By calling the owl "a fatal bellman," this
unscrupulous lady meant to imply that his
voice was the voice of fate, and that her
husband must, of necessity now, commit the
murder. But if kings are to have their throats
cut by their hosts in dreary old castles in
Scotland, it is quite time, I think, for owls to
be relieved of the accusation of being instruments
of such deeds. The shriek was not the
prophetic precursor of the deed, but the
natural proclamation of horror which all
right-minded owls would feel at its
accomplishment. One might multiply instances a
thousand-fold of the lavish abuse bestowed
upon the owl by poets, dramatists, and even
by historians; all tending to illustrate the
truth, that if you give an owl an ill name you
sign his death-warrant. But it is pleasanter
to turn to the bright side of the picture.
Indeed, it was chiefly to represent the owl in
a cheerful and agreeable light that I under-
took this disputation.

Buffon, with his many excellent qualifications,
is not quite so much the friend of the
owl as, in strict justice, he ought to be; but
the discerning reader will know how to separate
the wheat from the chaff in which he deals
so largely. Speaking of the Bubo Maximus
—called by the French the Grand Duke—he
says: "The poets have dedicated the eagle to
Jupiter and the duke to Juno. He is, in fact,
the eagle of the night, and the king of that
tribe of birds who fear" (let us say, avoid) "the
light of day, and only fly when it is gone."
Then comes some fault-finding. Compelled
to recognise the majesty of the Grand Duke's
deportment, he objects to his voice:
"His cry is fearful," he ill-naturedly observes,
"huihou, houhou, bouhou, upohou,"
expressions which, in my opinion, are innocent
enough in themselves and depend for
their effect entirely on the way in which
they are uttered. That these tones cannot
all of them be unmusical, may be inferred
from the remark of Nigidius, an old writer on
the habits of nocturnal birds, who tells us
that, "Howlets for sixty daies in winter
keepe close and remaine in covert, and then
chaunge their voice into nine tunes!"
Before he dismisses the Grand Duke, Buffon
must needs have a fling at his looks:
"These birds," he says, "are kept in menageries
on account of their singular appearance,"
a remark which applies with as much
truth to at least half the birds in every
ornithological collection. But Buffou's spite in
this matter is manifest, and it shows itself
also in the evident glee with which he
describes, after Peter Belon, the infamous use
to which the Grand Duke is occasionally
turned: "He is employed in falconry to
entrap the kite. In order to render his
figure still more extraordinary a fox's tail is
fastened to him; this appendage attracts the
kite from a distance, and he flies towards the
duke, not to attack, but to admire him " (Belon
is obliged to concede this) "and he hovers near
him so long that the sportsman has plenty
of time to kill the wondering bird of prey."
The Grand Duke has, however, nobler
employments, for the aforesaid Peter Belon, who
flourished (with a large folio in his hand) in
the middle of the sixteenth century, says, in
his Natural History of Birds: "He is called
Duke in French, very possibly, as being the
conductor or leader of other birds when they
depart for foreign countries." In this
sense we may look upon him as a kind of
Godfrey de Bouillon, or as a type of Peter
the Hermit.

Having nothing more to say against the