294 SNOWY OWL 



of the birds, made up of the hair and bones 

 of the smaller rodents, mainly mice. " There 

 must have been the debris of several thousand 

 mice and rats," Mr. Dury assures us. " But the 

 strangest part of the curious habitation was the 

 flock of domestic Pigeons that were living seem- 

 ingly on intimate terms with the Owls, and, judg- 

 ing from the old Pigeons' nests, I presume the 

 Pigeons had actually nested and reared young 

 there. This seems to show the food of this Owl 

 to be almost exclusively mice and rats, and proves 

 it to be a species of the greatest economic value." 

 It is interesting to know that a pair of these 

 birds have for years nested at intervals in one or 

 other of the towers of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion at Washington. 



Snowy Owl ; Nyctea nyctea. 

 (Plate XXVII.) 



Geographic Distribution. — Northern part of northern hem- 

 isphere ; breeds from Labrador northward, in North America 

 to Arctic Ocean, and wanders southward in winter regularly 

 to the northern United States, and occasionally to Texas and 

 California. 



A great deal of interest is excited by the ap- 

 pearance of a Snowy Owl in the neighborhood 

 in winter, for it is a large bird, dressed in the 

 white feathers that enable it to come unawares 

 upon its prey in its arctic home. Audubon gives 

 a most interesting account of the way he saw these 



