I don't know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody's inability seriously to spend time upon something, which, according to his preconceptions, is nonsense. He told a story of foolish, credulous people, in North Norfolk, England, who, in the winter of 1907-08, believed that a pair of shining things, moving about the fields, could not be explained as he explained them. According to other accounts, these things were as brilliant as electric lights. But a phosphorescent owl could not shine with a light like an electric light.
Science concerns itself with adaptations, and science itself is adaptation.
We are reminded of the Rev. Hugh Guy. De Sibour knew nothing about this subject, from his own experiences. We go to the same records to which he went. Like him, we find just about what we want to find. Among other attempts to assimilate with the known, or among other expressions of a world-wide antipathy to the finding out of anything new, was the idea that owls are sometime luminous.