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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" What a splendid bird ! " was our remark to an individual who prac- 

 tised at the bar. " Yes, fine enough when stufied. But, you see, we 

 had to do it, he got so nasty." We observed tliat the plumage did 

 not indicate it. The man replied, quickly : " Oh, there was no rum- 

 mao-e in him. We kept him tethered. All the rats and mice we 

 ketched was given him and the way he'd chuck 'em in wasn't slow ! 

 But, as I said, he got so nasty." We asked for an explanation. 

 " Well, you see, he got so nasty that, just as lief as not, he'd put his 

 talents right into your hand when you was a-feeding him. You see, 

 the bird got so nasty that he was mean." We replied that it was the 

 first instance of that kind of misdirected " talents " that we had ever 

 heard of, and we agreed with him that it wasn't nice at all. " Nice '? 



Fig. 9. The Snowy Owl {Nyctea nivea). 



Not much ! " he rejoined. " As I said, the bird got too nasty, so we 

 killed him, and had him stufied." He told me the bird was caught in 

 Warren County, and that they used to be plentiful a good many years 



ago. 



Probably, November, 1876, will go down in ornithological history 

 as the time of the famous southward raid of the snowy owls. Clad 

 as they are to resist the arctic cold, and such excellent hunters 

 whether by day or by night it would seem that want of food must 

 have started these birds on their journey. Could the severe arctic 

 winter, so disastrous to Captain Nare's expedition, have made this 

 scarcity ? It was during a pleasant autumn that these birds came 

 upon us. There must have been some sixty shot in my own vicinity. 

 A string of thirteen hung by a store in New York ; there were many 

 in the markets. One taxidermist in this city, it is said, had sixty left 

 with him to be stufied. Another in Philadelphia had about as many. 

 As early as September flocks of ten to fifteen were seen in difierent 

 places in Massachusetts. A number were shot in the city of Boston, 



