Kitap 9
45
They say, also, that the screech-owl does the same thing: for it is said that they also are caught by dancing. And Homer mentions them. And there is a kind of dance, which is called σκὼψ, or the screech-owl, from them; deriving its name from the variety of motion displayed by this animal. And the screech-owls also delight in imitation, and it is from their name that we say that those men σκώπτουσι, who keep looking at the person whom they wish to turn into ridicule, and mock all his conduct by an exact imitation, copying the conduct of those birds. But all the birds whose tongues are properly formed, and who are capable of uttering articulate sounds, imitate the voices of men and of other birds; as the parrot and the jay. The screech-owl, as Alexander the Myndian says, is smaller than the common owl, and he has whitish spots on a leaden-coloured plumage; and he puts out two tufts of feathers from his eyebrows on each temple. Now Callimachus says that there are two kinds of screech-owls, and that one kind does screech, and the other does not—on which account one kind is called σκῶπες, and the other kind is called ἀείσκωπες, and these last are of a grey colour.
