The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-08-12
From BIackloood's Magazine.
THE OWL.

The eagles, kites, and hawks hunt by
day. The owl is the Nimrod of the night.
Then, like one who shall be nameless, he
sails about, seeking those whom he NAV
devour. To do him justice, he has truly
ghost.like head and shoulders of his own.
What horror to the small birds that rejoice
in springs leafy bowers, fast locked we
were going to say in each others arms, but
sitting side by side in the same cozey nup-
tial nest, to be startled out of their love
dreams by the great, lamp-eyed, beaked
face of horrible menster with horns, pick
ed out of feathered bed, and waited off
in one bunch, with talons, to pacify set of
Kissing, and snappish, and shapeless pow
der puffs, in the loop-hole of barn. In q
house where cat is kept, mice are much
to be pitied. They are so infatuated with
the smell OF respectable larder, that to
leave the premises, they confess, is impossi-
BILE. Yet every hour-nay, every minute
of their lives, must they fear of being leap
ed ont upon by four velvet paws, and de-
voured with kisses from whskered mouth,
and throat full Of that incomprehensible
music-a pur. Life, on such terms, seems
to US any thing but desirable. But the
truth is, that mice in the fields are not a
whit better off. Owls are cats with wings
Swimming along the grass tops, they stop a
momentary hover, let drop a talon, and
away with Mus, his wife, and small family
of blind children. 1t is the white, or yell
low, or barn, or church, or screech-owl, or
gilley hewlett that behaves in this way ::
and he makes no bones of a mouse, uniform
ly swallowing him alive. Our friend, we
suspect, though no drunkard, is somewhat
a glutton. In one thing we agree with
hat hor Sc - I.
supper. There, however, we are guilty Of
some confusion of ideas. For what to us.
who rise in the morning, seems a supper, is
to HIM who gets up at evening twilight,
breakfast. After having passed pleasant
night in eating, and flirting, he goes to bed
betmes, about four o'clock in the morning ::
and as Berwick observes, makes a blowing.
kissing noise, resembling the snoring of a
man. Indeed, nothing can be more divert
ing to person annoyed by blue devils,
than to look at white owl and his wife.
asleep. With their heads gently inclined
towards each other, there they keep snor
ing away like any Christian couple. Should
the one make pause, the other that in
slant awakes, and, fearing that something
may be wrong with his spouse, opens pair
OF gllmmering, winking eyes, and inspects
the adjacent pyslognomy with the scrutiniz-
ing stare OF village apothecary. If all be
right, the concert is resumed. the snore
sometimes degenerating into sort of sniv-
el, and the SWIVEL becoming blowing hiss.
First time we heard this noise, was in
church-yard, when we were mere bows.
having ventured in after dark, to catch the
minister's colt, for a gallop over to the par
lsh capital, where there was a dancing
school ball. There had been a nest of owls
In some hole in the spire but we never
doubted for moment that the noise Of
snoring, blowing, Kissing, and swapping,
proceeded from testy old gentleman that
had been buried that forenoon, and had
come alive again day after the fair. Had
we reasoned the matter a little, we must
soon have convinced ourselves that there
was no ground of alarm, to us, at least for
the noise was like that of some one half
stuffed, and little likely to heave up from
above him six feet deep load of earth--to
say nothing of the improbablity of his be-
ing able to unscrew the coffin from the in
side. he that as il may, we cleared half a
dozen decent tomb-stones at three iumps ;:
the fourth took us over wall FIVE feet
within, and about fifteen without, and land
cd ms with squash in a cabbage garden.
enclosed on the other three sides by house
and holly hedge. The house was the
sections, who experimenting the stramash
TO proceed from resurrectionary surgeon
mistaken in his latitude, thrust out long
duck gun from window in the thatch, and
swore 10 blow our brains out if we did moi
instantly Surrender ourselves and deliver
up the corpse. II was in vain to cry our