New Horizons in Handsomeness

It was cool enough, early today, for a walk in the park, and in the park, there is one of those dumping grounds - ha ha! it is nicer than I am making it sound - for unwanted books. You know, a little wooden house where you can put old books for hoary old scavengers such as myself to pick through with our trembling fingers. And today we had a real find: THE NEW LAROUSSE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANIMAL LIFE. Honestly, "NEW" might be stretching it. But there was a pic of a solemn leopard on the cover, and I didn't think of it as having birds in it - that was not my motive for snagging it! - although I do realize that birds are animals (despite the fact, conclusively proven by the "blog," that pelicans are not owls; is that a syllogism?). All right! You know what I'm leading up to: once I got it home, I opened the book at random, to page 429, upon which was displayed a photo of a "Ferruginous Pygmy Owl," which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with Lou Ferrigno, sadly. My eyes twitched over to page 428, the facing page, where I saw the words "The Little Owl (Athene noctua) is a small, handsome-looking bird." (See also.) My skittish eye twitched back to page 429 and landed on "The handsome Snowy Owl." So! These people really think owls are handsome, or at least two kinds of owls are. Maybe they are repulsed by the features of some other poor owls. I have not yet ascertained whether they find mammals or reptiles handsome.