Part 17

“And yesterday, the bird of night did sit Even at noon-day upon the market-place Hooting and shrieking:”

and in Macbeth he introduces its cry as an accompaniment of the murder of Duncan:

“Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked, The fatal bellman, which giv’st the stern’st good-night. He is about it:”

and again in Henry the Sixth:

“The owl shriek’d at thy birth; an evil sign; The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time, Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempests shook down trees.”

Shakspeare has various other passages of much the same tenor, and so have many other poets of the English and other languages; but, as we can say truly with Cowper (in Task):

“The jay, the pie, and e’en the boding owl, That hails the rising moon, have charms for us,”

we have no intention at all of making out a strong case of bad reputation against him, even from the poets. We ought to say, though, that he has borne this reputation much more recently than the time of Pliny, and in some countries of the old world has scarcely yet attained a character of entire respectability. There might be a difficulty, however, in deciding which is the more remarkable, the things said of him, or the gravity of the sayer. A writer, cited in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, says to the point: “In the year 1542, at Herbipolis or Wirtzburg, in Franconia, this unlucky bird by his screeching songs affrighted the citizens a long time together, and immediately followed a great plague, war, and other calamities. About twenty years ago, I did observe that in the house where I lodged, an Owl groaning in the window presaged the death of two eminent persons who died there shortly after.” Another, bringing the matter to a more general bearing, says: “If an owl, which is reckoned a most abominable and unlucky bird, send forth its hoarse and dismal voice, it is an omen of the approach of something: that some dire calamity and some great misfortune is near at hand.” And amongst many similar stories, it is related by an old author, that when a Duke of Cleves was suffering with the disease of which he afterwards died, an Owl was seen and heard frequently upon the palace of Cleves in the day-time, and could scarcely be driven away. Very wonderful, but not calculated for the present meridian, and happily rather out of date generally. It would scarcely suit the citizens of our frontier States to regard in any such aspect the nightly serenades of the Great Horned Owl, though performed in a style entirely appropriate.

Other nations, and some more ancient than the Romans, also regarded the Owl with various degrees of superstition. In Egypt, at one period, an image of an Owl transmitted by the supreme authority to a subject, was an intimation in established form, that the latter would particularly oblige his sovereign by immediately committing suicide. With which civil invitation, compliance, at earliest convenience, appears to have been necessary, not entirely as a matter of mere politeness, but to save himself from aspersions as a man of honor and a gentleman. An instance is related by Diodorus Siculus, in which a person placed in such a dilemma and manifesting some repugnance and uncourtly backwardness, was put to death by one of his parents to save their house from disgrace.

But the people of the present day have been favored to live in an age characterized in all Christian countries by the diffusion of truth and the progress of intellectual cultivation, and in which, as a peculiar feature, the physical sciences especially have tended to dispel the mists of ages. In accordance with the spirit of it, modern writers rarely resort to the adoption, even in poetic composition, of ungrounded popular errors. Thus, with no such implication, Coleridge, in Christabel, introduces the Owl in an opening chorus:

“’Tis the middle of the night by the castle-clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock. Tu—whit!—tu-whoo! And hark again! the crowing cock How drowsily he crew.”

And beautiful too is the allusion to the Owl by Longfellow, in Hyperion: “For the owl is a grave bird; a monk who chants midnight mass in the great temple of Nature.”

Kirtland’s Owl, which we present to our readers in the plate now before us, is one of the most recent additions to the Ornithological Fauna of this country, and was first brought to notice by Philo R. Hoy, M. D., an eminent naturalist and physician of Racine, Wisconsin, who has ascertained its occurrence, and has succeeded in obtaining several specimens in the neighborhood of that city.

It appears, however, to be by no means a common species, though having been observed in the season of incubation, as well as in the winter, it may be presumed to be a constant resident, and further investigation may bring to light full details of its history. It belongs to a group composed of several species of small owls, found in the northern regions of both continents, the most common of which, in this country, is the little Acadian Owl (Nyctale acadica), a curious and rather handsome little species not very well known in the rural districts, but sometimes occurring, and also occasionally captured, in the cities. It is the least of the owls of the Atlantic States. Another species is known as Tengmalm’s Owl (N. Tengmalmii), which inhabits the higher northern latitudes of America and Europe.

Like the other small species of its family, the present Owl probably subsists on the smaller birds and quadrupeds and on insects. The last form no inconsiderable portion of the food of the smaller Owls. We have repeatedly found the remains of insects in the stomachs of several species; and in 1851, during the period of the appearance of the Seventeen-year Locust (Cicada septemdecim) in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, we enjoyed an opportunity, in company with several members of the Academy of Natural Sciences of this city, of observing the common Red Owl (Ephialtes asio) while engaged in feeding on insects of that remarkable species. It captured them principally in an apple-tree in which it was first noticed, but occasionally pursued its object to the ground, and with a degree of adroitness and avidity which fully evinced that it had been accustomed to similar occupation.

Dr. Hoy’s description of the species now before us was first published in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy, VI. p. 211, (Dec. 1852,) from which we make the following extract:

“But two specimens of this bird have been taken, to my knowledge; the first was captured in October 1851, and kept until winter, when it made its escape; the second, that from which the above description was taken, flew into an open shop, July 1852. It is strictly nocturnal, utters a low tremulous note, and is an active and efficient mouser.”

We have been informed by Dr. Hoy that during the past summer (1853,) he had succeeded in obtaining another specimen which proved to be a female. It is slightly larger than the male, but similar in all other respects.

The figures in our plate represent the male bird, and are about two-thirds of the size of life.

DESCRIPTION AND TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS.

Genus Nyctale. Brehm, Handb. Nat. Vog. Deutschlands, p. 111, (1831.)

Size, small. Bill rather weak and almost concealed by projecting plumes at its base, strongly curved and sharp. Wings moderate, rounded, with the third and fourth quills nearly equal and longest; tail moderate, tarsi short, and with the toes densely clothed with hair-like feathers; claws rather long, slender, and very sharp. Type N. Tengmalmii (Gmelin).

Nyctale Kirtlandii. Hoy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Philada., VI. p. 210, (Dec., 1852.)

Form. Small, but compact, wing with the fourth quill slightly longest, tarsi and toes fully feathered, claws slender, sharp.

Dimensions of a skin from Dr. Hoy. Male, total length from tip of bill to end of tail, about 7 inches; wing, 5¼; tail, 3 inches. “Extent of wings, 16 inches,” (Dr. Hoy.) Female, rather larger.

Colors. Male. Head and upper portion of breast, and entire upper parts dark chocolate-brown; front and eye-brows white, and a line of the same color extending downwards from the base of the lower mandible; ear feathers behind the eye darkest; primaries with white spots on their outer margins forming three irregular bars, and with circular spots of white on their inner webs; tail rather darker than the back, narrowly tipped with white, and having two bands composed of spots of white.

Entire under parts of the body, tarsi and toes, reddish-ochre-yellow; bill and claws black, iris-yellow.

Hab. State of Wisconsin. Spec. in Mus. Acad. Philada., and in Dr. Hoy’s coll. Racine, Wisconsin.