it devours animal and mineral substances
indiscriminately, until its enormous stomach is completely full. It
swallows without any choice, and merely as it were to serve for ballast,
wood, stones, grass, iron, copper, gold, lime, or, in fact, any other
substance equally hard, indigestible, and deleterious." Sir Thomas
Browne,[277] writing on this subject, says, "The ground of this conceit
in its swallowing down fragments of iron, which men observing, by a
forward illation, have therefore conceived it digesteth them, which is
an inference not to be admitted, as being a fallacy of the consequent."
In Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History" (No. 6, p. 32) we are told of
an ostrich having been killed by swallowing glass.

[274] Called _estridge_ in "1 Henry IV." iv. 1.

[275] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.

[276] "Animal Kingdom," 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.

[277] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.

_Owl._ The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken
of by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superstitions
associated with it. At the outset, many of the epithets ascribed to it
show the prejudice with which it was regarded--being in various places
stigmatized as "the vile owl," in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. I); and
the "obscure bird," in "Macbeth" (ii. 3), etc. From the earliest period
it has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on
one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of
them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird,
a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil[278]
describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a
circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid,[279] too,
constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed
the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most
of the ancient poets. This superstitious awe in which the owl is held
may be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain
appearance, its loud and dismal cry,[280] as well as to its being the
bird of night.[281] It has generally been associated with calamities and
deeds of darkness.[282] Thus, its weird shriek pierces the ear of Lady
Macbeth (ii. 2), while the murder is being committed:

"Hark!--Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Wh