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Excerpt from one of White's letters in The Natural History of Selborne

We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this church.... White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot at all; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tre- mendous manner; and these menaces well answer the intention of intimidating; for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the common people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry. [212]

Links to Related Material

• Richard Jefferies and other British Nature Writers — Gilbert White, William Cobbett, and W.H. Hudson
• Victorian Ornithologists

Bibliography

White, Gilbert. The Natural History of Selborne. Ed. Grant Allen. Illustrated by Edmund H. New. London and New York: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1900. Internet Archive, from a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 8 July 2023.

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Created 8 July 2023