An Unpleasant Sound

1895

Short Story of the Civil War Told by an Old Soldier.

"I was certainly more or less scared a number of times when I was in the army," said an old soldier — "in fact, I think soldiering in time of war is a more or less harassing occupation anyway, but I never was any more scared than I was once for a minute by something that had nothing to do with fighting whatever. This happened once when I was on picket in Virginia. The post was in a piece of woods. It was bad enough in the daytime, but at night, when you couldn't see anything at all, it was worse. It seemed as though it got darker and darker and stiller and stiller, and it seemed as though it would never end.

"Suddenly it was busted wide open by the awfulest sound I ever heard. Scared? Well!

"If you've ever felt the feeling that a man has before he actually gets under fire, when he's lying back somewhere in reserve and pretty safe, but hearing the crackle up ahead, and seeing the wounded brought back, and thinking that pretty soon he's got to go in himself, why, you know what it is to have one of the most unpleasant feelings a man ever had, but there you know what's coming. This came with a shock. I think it was the worst scare I ever had. It came right out of the air square overhead and close, too, where I hadn't been looking for anything, the frightfulest, most unearthly sound I ever heard, and all I could do was to stand there in the black dark and wait. A minute later it came again. What a tremendous relief! A screech owl! I'd never heard one before, but I knew now what it was." — New York Sun.

An Engineer's Experience

1902

"The superstition about owls is a wonderful thing," said an old railroad engineer, "and if I had not been inclined to be superstitious about the birds the engine I was riding one night would have been knocked into smithereens and the passengers in the coaches might have fared very badly. I am not always superstitious, but I am particularly so about owls. But I like the creatures, for one certainly saved my life.

"The incident occurred on a very dark night. The train was running at full speed. We were running on a straight line, and there was nothing for the fireman and myself to do but to look directly ahead and let her run. I had been looking intently for an hour, when something flew into the cab. It struck the coal pile and fell back dead. It was a great gray owl. Within less time than it takes to tell it I began to think that the owl was a bad omen, and I stopped the train immediately. I cannot say what made me feel so, but I was sure that death was ahead. I descended and walked to a switch that was a short distance ahead of us. It was open and a long train of empty freight cars was on it.

"I had the owl stuffed, and since that time he has had a place in the cab of my engine. I owe my life to the superstition about owls, and if another one strikes my engine I will close the throttle at once." — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Owls Well Equipped by Nature

1919

Simple Explanation of Remarkable Sense of Hearing Possessed by the Owl

It Is held by naturalists that in order to capture its prey the owl must depend even more upon its sense of hearing than upon its sense of sight. The tufts of feathers that distinguish the short-eared and the long-eared owls are, of course, no more ears than they are horns. The true ear of the owl is a most remarkable organ.

The facial disk of feathers that gives the owl its characteristic appearance serves as a kind of sounding-board or ear-trumpet to concentrate the slightest sounds and to transmit them to the orifice of the true ear, concealed in the small feathers behind the eye. Even in the barn owl, which possesses the least complicated arrangement of this kind, the orifice of the ear is covered by a remarkable flap of the skin, while in the other species there are striking differences in the size and shape of this orifice and its covering flap on the two sides of the head.

The exact way in which owls utilize this elaborately specialized apparatus has still to be discovered.

The Haunted Maintop – Fright Aboard An English Ship

1889

How a Talkative Parrot Frightened the Tars of An English Ship

Talking about ghosts, writes a correspondent of the Sheffield (Eng.) Telegraph, our chief mate once told me that on board a ship in which he once served the mate on duty ordered some of the youths to reef the maintop sail. When the first got up he heard a strange voice saying: "It blows hard!" The lad waited for no more; he was down in a trice and told his adventure. A second immediately ascended, laughing at the folly of his companion, but returned even more quickly, declaring he was quite sure that a voice not of this world had cried in his ear: "It blows hard!" Another went, and another, but each came back with the same tale.

At length the mate having sent up the whole watch, ran up the shrouds himself, and when he reached the haunted spot heard the dreadful words distinctly uttered in his ear:

"It blows hard!"

"Aye, aye. old one; but blow it ever so hard, we must ease the ear-rings for all that," replied the mate, undauntedly, and, looking round, he saw a line parrot perched on one of the clews — the thoughtless author of the false alarms — which had probably escaped from some other vessel to take refuge on this.

Another of our officers mentioned that on one of his voyages he remembered a boy having been sent to clear a rope which had got foul above the mizzentop. Presently, however, he came back trembling, and almost tumbling to the bottom, declaring that he had seen "Old Davy" aft the cross-trees. Moreover, that the evil one had a huge head and face, with prick-ears and eyes as bright as fire. Two or three others were sent up in succession, to all of whom the apparition glared forth, and was identified by each to be "Old Davy," sure enough.

The mate, in a rage, at length mounted himself, when resolutely, as in the former case, searching for the bugbear, he soon ascertained the innocent cause of so much terror to be a large horned owl, so lodged as to be out of sight to those who ascended on the other side of the vessel, but which, when any one approached the cross-trees, popped up his portentous visage to see what was coming. The mate brought him down in triumph, and "Old Davy," the owl, became a very peaceful shipmate among the crew, who were no longer scared by his horns and eyes, for sailors turn their back on nothing when they know what it is.

Had the birds in these two instances departed as they came, of course they would have been deemed supernatural visitants to the respective ships by all who had heard the one and seen the other.