Barn Owl (Tyto alba; originally Strix Flammea)
This long-legged, pale, monkey-faced bird is the owl of Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and other English literary works. It is the spook that haunts old barns, belfries, great hollow trees, and caves. It does not give away its presence by hooting as some owls do, but has a shrill rasping snore, or hollow hissing sound “shiiish,” which reminded Audubon of “an opossum about to die of strangulation.”
The two birds shown in this plate were given to Audubon by Richard Harlan of Philadelphia. They had been brought from the south, and were fine adult birds in excellent plumage. The original painting, which is in the collection of the New York Historical Society, was on a white sheet of paper. The gloomy night background was added later, presumably by Havell, the engraver, who often improvised his own background when he felt one was needed.