HOW AN OWL'S HEAD REVOLVES.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3624, 7 August 1880, Page 4

HOW AN OWL'S HEAD REVOLVES.

A writer in a ■.contemporary who had read a story about an owl wringing his own neck off by looking at a man who was walking around him, tested the matter by experiment. IHe obtained a specimen and placed him on the top of a post. "It was not difficult," says the, writer, "to secure his .attention, for he never diverted his gaze from me while I was in his presence. I began walking rapidly round the : post, a few feet from it, keeping my eyes fixed upon him all the while. His body remained motionless, but his head turned exactly with my movements. When I was half way round, hia head was directly behind. Three quarters of a circle were completed; and still the same twist of the neck and the same stare followed. One circle, and no change. On 1 went, twice round arid still that watchful stare, and steady turn of the head. On I went, three times round, and I began really to wonder why the head did not drop off, when all at once I discovered what I had failed to notice before. When I reached half.way round from the front, which was. as ..far as he could turn his head with comfort, he whisked it back through the whole circle «o r instantaneously, and brought it facing me again with such precision, that I failed to detect the movement, although I was looking intently all the time.