luctus,
Ignavus bubo, dirum mortalibus omen."[1]

In his _Fasti_ he openly accuses it of felony:--

"Nocte volant, puerosque petunt nutricis egentes."[2]

Lucan, too, has hit it hard:--

"Et laetae juranter aves, bubone sinistro:"[3]

and the Englishman who continued the _Pharsalia_, says--

"Tristia mille locis Stylus dedit omina bubo."[4]

Horace tells us that the old witch Canidia used part of the plumage of the
owl in her dealings with the devil:--

"Plumamque nocturnae strigis."[5]

Virgil, in fine, joined in the hue and cry against this injured family:--

"Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo Saepe queri, et longas in fletum
ducere voces."[6]

In our own times we find that the village maid cannot return home from
seeing her dying swain, without a doleful salutation from the owl:--

"Thus homeward as she hopeless went,
The churchyard path along,
The blast grew cold, the dark owl scream'd
Her lover's funeral song."

Amongst the numberless verses which might be quoted against the family of
the owl, I think I only know of one little ode which expresses any pity
for it. Our nursery maid used to sing it to the tune of the Storm, "Cease
rude Boreas, blust'ring railer." I remember the first two stanzas of it:--

"Once I was a monarch's daughter,
And sat on a lady's knee;
But am now a nightly rover,
Banish'd to the ivy tree--
Crying, hoo hoo, hoo hoo, hoo hoo,
Hoo hoo hoo, my feet are cold!
Pity me, for here you see me,
Persecuted, poor, and old."

I beg the reader's pardon for this exordium. I have introduced it, in
order to show how little chance there has been, from days long passed and
gone to the present time, of studying the haunts and economy of the owl,
because its unmerited bad name has created it a host of foes, and doomed
it to destruction from all quarters. Some few, certainly, from time to
time, have been kept in cages and in aviaries. But nature rarely thrives
in captivity, and very seldom appears in her true character when she is
encumbered with chains, or is to be looked at by the passing crowd through
bars of iron. However, the scene is now going to change; and I trust that
the reader will contemplate the owl with more friendly feelings, and quite
under different circumstances. Here, no rude schoolboy ever approaches its
retreat; and those who once dreaded its diabolical doings are now fully
satisfied that i