128 BIRDS OF PREY. 



with numerous transverse dusky bars on a yellow and white ground j 

 the vent paler. The feet covered with hair-like pale brown feath- 

 ers. Claws black. Tail rounded, and broad, passing an inch be- 

 yond the wings, mottled Avith brown and tawny, and crossed with 

 6 or 7 narrow bars of brown. Above, whitish and ferruginous, 

 thickly mottled with dusky. Chin whitish, beneath a band of brown, 

 and then another narrow one of white. — The Female is about 2 feet, 

 with the white on the throat less pure, and is also less ferruginous 

 below. 



1 1. With the head not tufted; — and the disk of feathers round the 

 face distinctly developed. 



GREAT GREY or CINEREOUS OWL. 



(Strix cinerea, Gm. Pjennant. vol. i. p. 268. No. 120. Bonap. Am. 

 Orn. ... pi. 23. fig. 2. S. lapponica, Tem.) 



Spec. Charact. — Dark umber-brown mottled with whitish ; the 

 face cinereous, with narrow black concentric circles ; the tail 

 extending beyond the wings, both of which are banded, and the 

 bands mottled ; bill yellowish-white ; the irids yellow ; feet and 

 legs grey and unspotted. 



This is the largest American species known, and, 

 if the S. lapponica, common also to the arctic circle, 

 and seldom leaving it ; being only accidental about Lake 

 Superior, and occasionally seen in Massachusetts in the 

 depth of severe winters. One was caught perched on a 

 wood-pile, in a state of listless inactivity, in the morning 

 after day-light, at Marblehead, in February, 183L This 

 individual survived for several months, and showed a 

 great partiality for fish and birds. At times he uttered a 

 tremulous cry or ho ho ho ho hoo, not very dissimilar 

 to that of the Mottled Owl. At Hudson's Bay and Lab- 

 rador it resides the whole year. They associate in 

 pairs ; fly very low, and feed on mice and hares, which 

 they seize with such muscular vigor as sometimes to 

 sink into the snow after them a foot deep. With ease 



I 



