Other well-known American owls are the screech-owls (Megascops asio, with half a dozen subspecies). They are little owls, only nine to ten inches long, with ear-tufts, and are found in all parts of the United States and Canada. They are of special interest because of their remarkable diehromatism (q.v.). some of the birds having the prevailing tint gray. while others are rusty red. The barred owl, without ear-tufts, is a large species, also common throughout the United States. in the South western States are found several species of little owls, which feed largely on insects, and are known as 'gnome-owls' and 'elf-owls.' They are only six or seven inches long and are not spe cially nocturnal. They belong to the genera Glaucidium and Alierathene. Another peculiar and interesting is the burrowing owl (q.v.) of the Plains. It is not the only owl which inhabits holes in the ground. The hoobouk of Australia (Vino.r booboo]:) is a species of owl, which frequently repeats during the night the cry represented by its name, as if it were a nocturnal cuckoo, as the inhabitants generally believe.
Of British species, one of the most common and familiar, and the one most often referred to in literature, is the 'tawny.' 'brown.' or 'ivy' owl USyrnium alaco), which is of medium size, and mottled ash-gray and brown, with the under parts lighter. It inhabits church belfries, ruins. ivied walls, and like places, often in a semi-domestic condition. One of the best accounts of it (and of the next named species) is to be found in Charles Waterton's Essays. Another generally interesting species is the 'little' owl of Southern Europe. called 'eheveehe' by the French and 'eivetta' by the Italians. which is the one re garded by the ancients as the familiar of Ali nerva, a symbol of wisdom, and hence became the emblem of Athens. It is the ('arise noetua of modern ornithology. This small species is brown. mottled with white oval spots. has no 'horns,' and its great eyes are surrounded by horizontally oval disks, like big spectacles, giving it a very 'knowing' expression. It is numerous, compara tively tame, and lives well in aviaries.
The owl has from early times been deemed a bird of evil omen, and has been an object of dis like and dread to the superstitious. This is per
haps partly to be ascribed to the manner with which it is often seen, then as suddenly lost to view, when the twilight is deepening into night ; partly to the fact that some of the best known ones frequent ruined buildings, while others haunt the deepest solitudes of woods; but, no doubt, chiefly to the cry of some of the species, hollow and lugubrious, but loud and startling, heard during the hours of darkness, and often by the lonely wanderer. It is evidently from this cry that the word 'owl' is derived, as well as many of its syn onyms in other languages, and of the names ap propriated in different countries to particular species. in most of which the sound 00 or ow is predominant. Nevertheless the notes of some of the smaller ones, as our common American 'mottled owl.' are low and melodious—a pleasant rippling ululation. Many of the owls have also another and very different cry, which has gained for more than one of them the appellation 'screech-owl: and to which, probably, the Latin name stri.r and some other names are to be re ferred. The superstitions concerning owls per sist and belong to savage as well as to civilized peoples. The folk-lore of the uncivilized world is full of such notions. European peasants con nect the birds with death-signs; the Andalusians :qty they are the Devil's birds and drink the oil from the lamps in saints' shrines; and the Malagasy consider them embodiments of the spirits of the wicked. Even the birds and squirrels of the woods mob the owl unmercifully when one is discovered dozing in its retreat : but is merely in recognition of a natural enemy taken at a disadvantage.
Bummer:um-1r. See standard ornithologies and faunal works. especially Newton, Dictionary of Birds (New York, 1S931, and Evans. Birds (New York, 19001. For North America, consult the writings of Wilson. Audubon. Nuttall, Cones. and recent ornithologists, especially Fisher. I/forks end Girls of the States (Washington, 18931. For superstitions, etc., consult: Brehm, .Gat urgesehiehteder Fogel Deutsehlands( I 1 mena 1831; trans. into English as Bird Life, London, 187-1) ; De Gubernatis. Zaiilogical Mythology (London, 1872) : De Kay. Bird Gods (New York, 1898) ; and authorities cited under FOLK-LORE