Chapter 3 THE OWL AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.

AS Jove assumed the shape of an Eagle, so Juno selected that of an Owl, for, as Aldrovandus tells us, it was not decorous that the queen of heaven should take on herself the likeness of any small or vulgar bird, but rather that she should be embodied in one whose reign by night was equal with that of the eagle by day. The owl has usually been regarded as a bird of ill omen, and superstitiously considered a messenger of woe.

The Athenians alone among the ancients seem to have been free from this popular prejudice, and to have regarded the owl with veneration rather than abhorrence, considering it as the favourite of Minerva, and the image of wisdom. The Romans viewed the owl with detestation and dread. By them it was held sacred to Proserpine: its appearance foreboded unfortunate events, and, according to Pliny, the city of Rome underwent a solemn lustration in consequence of an owl having accidentally strayed into the Capitol.

ITS USE IN MEDICINE.

In the ancient pharmacop?ia, which savoured not a little of magic, the owl appears to have been "great medicine." Ovid tells us that this bird was used wholesale in the composition of Medea's gruel:-

"Et strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas."

While, according to Horace, the old witch Canidia made use of the feathers in her incantations:-

"Plumamque nocturn? strigis."

A BIRD OF ILL OMEN.

The "owlet's wing" was an ingredient of the cauldron wherein the witches prepared their "charm of powerful trouble" (Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 1); and, with the character assigned to it by the ancients, Shakespeare, no doubt, felt that the introduction of an owl in a dreadful scene of a tragedy would help to make the subject come home more forcibly to the people, who had, from early times, associated its presence with melancholy, misfortune, and death. Accordingly, we find the unfortunate owl stigmatized at various times as the "obscure," "ominous," "fearful," and "fatal" "bird of night." Its doleful cry pierces the ear of Lady Macbeth while the murder is being done:-

"Hark!-Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd,

The fatal bellman which gives the stern'st good night."

Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 1.

And when the murderer rushes in immediately afterwards, exclaiming,-

"I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?"

She replies,-

"I heard the owl scream."

And later on-

"The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night."

Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 2.

The awe, no doubt, with which this bird is regarded by the superstitious, may be attributed in some measure to the fact of its flying by night.

"Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,

········

The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl."

Henry VI. Part II. Act i. Sc. 4.

And yet, strange to say, the appearance of an owl by day is by some considered equally ominous:-

"The owl by day,

If he arise, is mocked and wondered at."

Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 4.

"For night-owls shriek, where mounting larks should sing."

Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 3.

ITS HABITS MISUNDERSTOOD.

Should an owl appear at a birth it is said to forbode ill-luck to the infant. King Henry VI., addressing Gloster, says,-

"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign."

Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.

While upon any other occasion its presence was supposed to predict a death, or at least some dire mishap:-

"The screech-owl, screeching loud,

Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,

In remembrance of a shroud."

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 2.

When Richard III. is irritated by the ill-news showered thick upon him, he interrupts the third messenger with-

"Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?"

Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.

It is curious how wide-spread is the superstition regarding certain birds, and particularly the owl. Even amongst the Land Dayaks of Borneo, the owl is considered a bird of ill omen. Mr. Spenser St. John, in his "Life in the Forests of the Far East," observes with regard to omens (vol. i. p. 202):-

"If a man be going on a war expedition, and has a slip during his first day's journey, he must return to his village, especially if by the accident blood be drawn, for then, should he proceed, he has no prospect but wounds or death. If the accident occur during a long expedition, he must return to his last night's resting place. In some tribes, if a deer cry near a party who are setting out on a journey, they will return. When going out at night to the jungle, if the scream of a hawk, or an owl, or of a small kind of frog be heard, it is a sign that sickness will follow if the design be pursued; and again, if the screech of the two former be heard in front of a party on the warpath, it is an evil sign, and they must return. Omens derived from the cry of birds are always sought previously to setting out on a journey, and before fixing on a spot to build new houses, or to prepare their farms."

ITS UTILITY TO THE FARMER.

Far from bringing any ill-luck to our dwellings, owls are really of the greatest service to us in destroying great numbers of vermin. A Swiss naturalist, speaking of the quantity of field-voles which are annually destroyed by owls and buzzards, says:56-

"C'est un fait curieux que l'homme s'acharne tout particulièrement à detruire ses meillures amis, et qu'il poursuive de ses malédictions les êtres qui le servent le mieux. Je joindrai donc ma faible voix à celle de bien d'autres naturalistes pour demander que l'on protége les premières de ces bêtes.

"Les hibous et les chouettes, bien loin de jeter de mauvais sorts sur nos demeures, prennent au contraire, un grand soin de nos intérêts. Ces oiseaux exterminent, en effet, bien plus de souris que n'en pourront prendre jamais les meilleurs taupiers. Les buses n'ont nullement mérité leur place sur la porte de nos granges, et plut?t que de les tuer, l'on ferait bien mieux d'établir chez nous, comme cela s'est fait avec succès dans certaines localités, de hauts perchoirs dans nos campagnes pour attirer ces oiseaux bienfaisants."

A CURIOUS TRADITION.

Among the many curious legends which exist with reference to this bird, we may mention one to which Shakespeare has alluded in Hamlet:-

"They say the owl was a baker's daughter."

Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5.

Mr. Staunton, in his edition of Shakespeare's Plays, says this has reference to a tradition still current in some parts of England. "Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it considerably in size. The dough, however, immediately afterwards began to swell, and presently became of an enormous size. Whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Wheugh! wheugh! wheugh!' which owl-like noise, it is said, probably induced our Saviour, for her wickedness, to transform her into that bird."

Mr. Douce represents this story as still current amongst the common people in Gloucestershire.57 According to Nuttall, the north country nurses would have it that the owl was a daughter of Pharaoh, and when they heard it hoot on a winter's night, they sang to the wondering child-

"Oh! ? ? ?, ō ō;

I once was a king's daughter, and sat on my father's knee,

But now I'm a poor hoolet, and hide in a hollow tree."

There is much difference of opinion amongst naturalists as to whether the power of hooting and shrieking is possessed by the same species. In the following passage from Julius C?sar (Act i. Sc. 3), both sounds are attributed to the same bird:-

"Yesterday the bird of night did sit,

Even at noonday, upon the market-place,

Hooting and shrieking."

It is generally supposed that the common barn or white owl does not hoot, but only shrieks, and is, in fact, the bird always alluded to as the "screech-owl," while the brown owls (Strix otus, brachyotus, and aluco) are the hooters-

"The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots."

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 2.

But Mr. Colquhoun, speaking of the white or barn owl, says,58 "It does hoot, but very rarely. I heard one six times in succession, and then it ceased." Sir William Jardine once shot a white owl in the act of hooting; and Mr. Boulton, of Beverley, Yorkshire, describes59 the note of one of these birds which he had reared from the nest, and kept in confinement for fifteen months, as follows:-"It does hoot exactly like the long-eared owl, but not so frequently. I use the term 'hoot' in contradistinction to 'screech,' which it often does when irritated."

NOTE OF THE OWL.

In Gardiner's "Music of Nature" the note of the brown owl is thus rendered:-

[MIDI]

Mr. Colquhoun, to whom allusion has just been made, says, that the music of the white or barn owl is a little different from that of the brown owls. It is only one prolonged cadence, lower and not so mournful as that of the tawny fellow.

It would appear that owls do not keep to one note. A friend of Gilbert White's remarked that most of his owls hooted in B flat, but that one went almost half a note below A. The pipe by which he tried their notes was a common half-crown pitchpipe. A neighbour, also, of the Selborne naturalist, who was said to have a nice ear, remarked that the owls about Selborne hooted in three different keys: in G flat (or F sharp), in B flat, and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, the other in B flat.

It did not appear, however, whether the sounds proceeded from different species of brown owls, or from different individuals of the same species.

AN OWL ROBBING NESTS.

Another question in the life-history of the owl is raised by the following passage from Macbeth (Act iv. Sc. 2):-

"For the poor wren,

The most diminutive of birds, will fight,

Her young ones in her nest, against the owl."

This defence of their young by birds has often been noticed by Shakespeare:-

"Unreasonable creatures feed their young;

And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,

Yet, in protection of their tender ones,

Who hath not seen them (even with those wings

Which sometimes they have us'd with fearful flight)

Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,

Off'ring their own lives in their young's defence?"

Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.

EVIDENCE NOT CONCLUSIVE.

We are not aware, however, that an owl has ever been caught in the act of robbing a nest, and, indeed, it would not be easy to detect him, from the fact of his preying by night. Nevertheless, there is presumptive evidence to support the charge. A writer in The Field, of 29th June, 1867, says:-"Standing in my garden in Bedford Park, Croydon, an evening or two since, I saw a white owl fly to a sparrow's nest lodged on a water-spout under the roof of the house, and as though that visit was not successful, he repeated it, and then went to a nest on the next house, in the same way. It was too dark for me to see if he succeeded in his marauding expedition against the poor sparrows. Is it a common occurrence for an owl to go robbing nests? I never saw it done before, though I have lived all my life in the country, and of course seen this favourite bird skimming over the water meadows for its supper." To this communication the editor adds the following note:-"This fact is extremely interesting, and, we think, generally unknown. It would, however, have added much to the interest, had the robbery actually been proved; it does not seem quite certain that this was the owl's object in visiting the roof."

ITS CHARACTER MALIGNED.

Some years ago, having made the discovery that some stock-doves were building in the wooden spire of our village church, we commissioned the parish clerk to secure a pair of young birds as soon as they were ready to fly. He made several attempts for this purpose, paying occasional visits to see how the young birds were getting on, when, on going to the nest, as he supposed for the last time, to carry them off, he found it empty. This happened three or four times, and he was much puzzled to account for it. The birds could not have flown-they were not old enough. No one else could have taken them, for the church could not be entered without the key, which he always kept. Had rats carried them off? The clerk said there were none. Had there been any, he must have heard or seen them on one or other of his many visits to the church, or at least have found signs of their presence. But this was never the case. He stated, however, that a pair of barn owls lived in the same spire, and he thought that they were the culprits, taking the young ones, as he said, as soon as they were fat enough, to save themselves the trouble of hunting out of doors. Be this as it may, we feel bound to say, on behalf of the owls, they were never caught in the fact, and that the parent stock-doves were not deterred from laying again and again, and at length rearing a brood. Charles Waterton, whose name will be familiar to all naturalists, argues strongly against the notion of the barn owl robbing dove-cotes. He says60:-"When farmers complain that the barn owl destroys the eggs of their pigeons, 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 dove-cot. 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 dove-cot, 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 hobby should make its 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 dove-cot."

ITS RETIRING HABITS.

Its habit of breeding in retired situations is alluded to in Titus Andronicus, Act ii. Sc. 3:-

"Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,

Unless the nightly owl."

And Shakespeare has truly characterized the appearance of this bird on the wing, when he speaks of

"The night-owl's lazy flight."

Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 1.

ITS FIVE WITS.

Why the owl has been called the "bird of wisdom" it is not easy to determine. Possibly because it can see in the dark, and is the only bird which looks straightforward. Shakespeare frequently alludes to its "five wits," and the readers of Tennyson's poems will no doubt remember the lines:-

"Alone, and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits."

With our early writers the five senses appear to have been generally called the "five wits." Chaucer, in the "Parsone's Tale," says:-"Certes delites been after the appetites of the 'five wittes;' as sight, hereing, smelling, savouring, and touching." But it is not clear how this proverbial phrase became connected with the owl, nor what is the origin of "warming" the wits.

"Petruchio. Am I not wise?

Katharine. Yes, keep you warm."

Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. Sc. 1.

"If he have wit enough to keep himself warm."

Much Ado, Act i. Sc. 1.

"Bless thy five wits."

King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4, and Act iii. Sc. 6.

ITS FAME IN SONG.

The allusion above made to Tennyson's well-known poem, reminds us of the quaint and characteristic song in the last scene of Love's Labour's Lost:-

III.

"When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."

Nor do we forget Ariel's song in The Tempest (Act v. Sc. 1)-

"Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;

In a cowslip's bell I lie,

There I couch when owls do cry."

Amongst the fairies, at least, the owl seems to have found friends, and is generally represented as a companion in their moonlight gambols:-

"This is the fairy land!-O, spite of spites!-

We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites."

Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Sc. 2.

The folio of 1623 omits "elvish," but the folio of 1632 has "elves," which Rowe changed to "elvish."

ITS COMRADES.

The following quotation we have some hesitation in introducing, for there appears to be a difference of reading, which quite alters the sense:-

"No, rather, I abjure all roofs, and choose

·······

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,-

Necessity's sharp pinch."

King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 4.

Mr. Collier, taking into consideration the last line, reads:-

"To be a comrade with the wolf, and howl

Necessity's sharp pinch."

And this seems more likely to be the correct reading. Albeit, in support of the former version, the following passage in Lucrece has been adduced:-

"No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries."

It is not to be supposed that Shakespeare was always a firm believer in the popular notions respecting animals and birds to which he has made allusion. In many cases he had a particular motive in introducing such notions, although possibly aware of their erroneous nature, and he evidently adopted them only to impart an air of reality to the scenes which he depicted, and to bring them home more forcibly to the impressionable minds of his auditors, to whom such "folks-lore" would be familiar. This is notably the case as regards the owl, and no one can read the first scene in the second act of Macbeth, or the fourth scene in the first act of Henry VI. (Part II.), without feeling the impressive effect produced by the introduction of a bird which is held in such detestation by the ignorant, but which naturalists have shown to be not only harmless, but useful.

THE OWL'S GOOD NIGHT.

But-

"The owl, night's herald, shrieks,-'tis very late."

Venus and Adonis.

And, therefore, with Boyet, in Love's Labour's Lost (Act iv. Sc. 1), we will say:-

"Good night, my good owl."