O you virtuous owle,
The wise Minerva's only fowle.

Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about two hundred species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight. Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl. Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds although a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families: the true owls or typical owls, Strigidae; and the barn-owls, Tytonidae.

Quotes

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 574-75.
  • The large white owl that with eye is blind,
    That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,
    Is carried away in a gust of wind.
  • The Roman senate, when within
    The city walls an owl was seen,
    Did cause their clergy, with lustrations
    * * * *
    The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert,
    From doing town or country hurt.
  • In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
    The spectral Owl doth dwell;
    Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
    But at dusk—he's abroad and well!
    Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him—
    All mock him outright, by day:
    But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
    The boldest will shrink away!
    O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
    Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl!
  • St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
    The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.
  • The wailing owl
    Screams solitary to the mournful moon.
    • David Mallett, Excursion.
  • The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry,
    Portends strange things, old women say;
    Stops every fool that passes by,
    And frights the school-boy from his play.
  • It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
    Which gives the stern'st good night.
  • O you virtuous owle,
    The wise Minerva's only fowle.
  • When cats run home and light is come,
    And dew is cold upon the ground,
    And the far-off stream is dumb,
    And the whirring sail goes round,
    And the whirring sail goes round;
    Alone and warming his five wits,
    The white owl in the belfry sits.
  • Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade,
    Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.
  • Encyclopedic article on Owl at Wikipedia
  • The dictionary definition of owl at Wiktionary
  • Media related to Strigiformes at Wikimedia Commons
  • Data related to Strigiformes at Wikispecies
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