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 it no longer meddles with their destinies, or has any thing to do with the repose of their departed friends. Indeed, human wretches in the shape of body-snatchers seem here in England to have usurped the office of the owl in our churchyards; "et vendunt tumulis corpora rapta suis."*

Up to the year 1813, the barn owl had a sad time of it at Walton Hall. Its supposed mournful notes alarmed the aged housekeeper. She knew full well what sorrow it had brought into other houses when she was a young woman; and there was enough of mischief in the midnight wintry blast, without having it increased by the dismal screams of something which people knew very little about, and which every body said was far too busy in the churchyard at nighttime. Nay, it was a well-known fact, that if any person were sick in the neighbourhood, it would be for ever looking in at the window, and holding a conversation outside with somebody, they did not know whom. The gamekeeper agreed with her in every thing she said on this important subject; and he always stood better in her books when he had

"And sell bodies torn from their tombs."

managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. However, in 1813, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it. Huge masses of ivy now quite cover it. In about a month or so after it was finished, a pair of barn owls came and took up their abode in it. I threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after this, he molested either the old birds or their young ones; and I assured the housekeeper that I would take upon myself the whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe, and sorrow that the new tenants might bring into the Hall. She made a low courtesy; as much as to say, "Sir, I fall into your will and pleasure" but I saw in her eye that she had made up her mind to have to do with things of fearful and portentous shape, and to hear many a midnight wailing in the surrounding woods. I do not think that, up to the day of this old lady's death, which took place in her eighty-fourth year, she ever looked with pleasure or contentment on the barn owl, as it flew round the large sycamore trees which grow near the old ruined gateway.

When I found that this first settlement on the gateway had succeeded so well, I set about forming other establishments. This year I have had four broods, and I trust that next season I can calculate on having nine. This will be a pretty increase, and it will help to supply the place of those which in this neighbourhood are still unfortunately doomed to death, by the hand of cruelty or superstition. We can now always have a peep at the owls, in their habitation on the old ruined gateway, whenever we choose. Confident of protection, these pretty birds betray no fear when the stranger mounts up to their place of abode. I would here venture a surmise, that the barn owl sleeps standing. Whenever we go to look at it, we invariably see it upon the perch bolt upright, and often with its eyes closed, apparently fast asleep. Buffon and Bewick err (no doubt, unintentionally) when they say that the barn owl snores during its repose. What they took for snoring was the cry of the young birds for food. I had fully satisfied myself on this score some years ago. However, in December, 1823, I was much astonished to hear this same snoring kind of noise, which had been so common in the

month of July. On ascending the ruin, I found a brood of young owls in the apartment.

Upon this ruin is placed a perch, about a foot from the hole at which the owls enter. Sometimes, at midday, when the weather is gloomy, you may see an owl upon it, apparently enjoying the refreshing diurnal breeze. This year (1831) a pair of barn owls hatched their young, on the 7th of September, in a sycamore tree, near the old ruined gateway.

If this useful bird caught its food by day, instead of hunting for it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice, and it would be protected and encouraged every where. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians. When it has young, it will bring a mouse to the nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes. But, in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the owl on the old gateway was cleaned out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets.

The barn owl sometimes carries off rats. One evening I was sitting under a shed, and killed a very large rat, as it was coming out of a hole, about ten yards from where I was watching it I did not go to take it up, hoping to get another shot. As it lay there, a barn owl pounced upon it, and flew away with it.

This bird has been known to catch fish. Some years ago, on a fine evening in the month of July, long before it was dark, as I was standing on the middle of the bridge, and minuting the owl by my watch, as she brought mice into her nest, all on a sudden she dropped perpendicularly into the water. Thinking that she had fallen down in epilepsy, my first thoughts were to go and fetch the boat; but before I had well got to the end of the bridge, I saw the owl rise out of the water with a fish in her claws, and take it to the nest. This fact is mentioned by the late much revered and lamented Mr. Atkinson of Leeds, in his Compendium, in a note, under the signature of W., a friend of his, to whom I had communicated it a few days after I had witnessed it.

I cannot make up my mind to pay any attention to the description of the amours of the owl by a modern writer; at least the barn owl plays off no buffooneries here, such as those which he describes. An owl is an owl all the world over, whether under the influence of Momus, Venus, or Diana.

When farmers complain that the barn owl destroys the

eggs of their pigeon, they lay the saddle on the wrong horse. They ought to put it on the rat. Formerly I could get very few young pigeons till the rats were excluded effectually from the dovecot. Since that took place, it has produced a great abundance every year, though the barn owls frequent it, and are encouraged all around it. The barn owl merely resorts to it for repose and concealment. If it were really an enemy to the dovecot, we should see the pigeons in commotion as soon as it begins its evening flight; but the pigeons heed it not: whereas, if the sparrowhawk or windhover should make their appearance, the whole community would be up at once, proof sufficient that the barn owl is not looked upon as a bad, or even a suspicious, character by the inhabitants of the dovecot.

Till lately, a great and well-known distinction has always been made betwixt the screeching and the hooting of owls. The tawny owl is the only owl which hoots; and when I am in the woods after poachers, about an hour before daybreak, I hear with extreme delight its loud, clear, and sonorous notes, resounding far and near through hill and dale. Very different from these notes is the screech of the barn owl. But Sir William Jardine informs us that this owl hoots; and that he has shot it in the act of hooting. This is stiff authority; and I believe it because it comes from the pen of Sir William Jardine. Still, however, methinks that it ought to be taken in a somewhat diluted state; we know full well that most extraordinary examples of splendid talent do, from time to time, make their appearance on the world's wide stage. Thus, Franklin brought down fire from the skies:-" Eripuit fulmen cœlo, sceptrumque tyrannis." Paganini has led all London captive, by a single piece of twisted catgut:-" Tu potes reges comitesque stultos ducere."+ Leibnitz tells us of a dog in Germany that could pronounce distinctly thirty words. Goldsmith informs us that he once heard a raven whistle the tune of the "Shamrock," with great distinctness, truth, and humour. With these splendid examples before our eyes, may we not be inclined to suppose that the barn owl which Sir William shot in the absolute act of hooting may have been a gifted bird, of superior parts and knowledge (una de multis ‡, as Horace said of Miss Danaus), endowed, perhaps, from its early days with the faculty of hooting, or else skilled in the art by having been taught it by

* "He snatched lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants." "Thou canst lead kings and their silly nobles."

"One out of many."

its neighbour, the tawny owl? I beg to remark, that though I unhesitatingly grant the faculty of hooting to this one particular individual owl, still I flatly refuse to believe that hooting is common to barn owls in general. Ovid, in his sixth book Fastorum, pointedly says that it screeched in his day:

"Est illis strigibus nomen; sed nominis hujus

Causa, quod horrendâ stridere nocte solent." * The barn owl may be heard shrieking here perpetually on the portico, and in the large sycamore trees near the house. It shrieks equally when the moon shines and when the night is rough and cloudy; and he who takes an interest in it may here see the barn owl the night through when there is a moon; and he may hear it shriek when perching on the trees, or when it is on wing. He may see it and hear it shriek, within a few yards of him, long before dark; and again, often after daybreak, before it takes its final departure to its wonted resting place. I am amply repaid for the pains I have taken to protect and encourage the barn owl; it pays me a hundred-fold by the enormous quantity of mice which it destroys throughout the year. The servants now no longer wish to persecute it. Often, on a fine summer's evening, with delight I see the villagers loitering under the sycamore trees longer than they would otherwise do, to have a peep at the barn owl, as it leaves the ivy-mantled tower: fortunate for it, if, in lieu of exposing itself to danger, by mixing with the world at large, it only knew the advantage of passing its nights at home; for here

"No birds that haunt my valley free

To slaughter I condemn;

Taught by the Power that pities me,
I learn to pity them."

Walton Hall, November 26. 1831.

CHARLES WATERTON.

ART. IV. Fishes new to the British Fauna, contained in Couch's History of the Fishes of Cornwall." By JONATHAN COUCH, Esq. F.L.S. &c.

MIDGE (CILIATA GLAU'CA); Class II. Jugular Fishes.

THE Midge (fig. 2.) is about 1 in. in length; the body moderately elongated, the proportions much resembling those

"They are called owls (striges), because they are accustomed to screech (stridere) by night."