SIBERIAN GRAY OWL 219 



Casual records. — Great gray owls have many times been taken or 

 observed in winter south of what seems to be their normal range. 

 Among these records are the following: One reported as seen on the 

 Humber River, Newfoundland, on August 28, 1899. One taken at 

 Stratford, Conn., on January 6, 1843; another taken at North Haven 

 in March 1907, while a third was reported as seen near the latter 

 point on February 4, 1934. In 1887 one was recorded as having 

 been shot near Mendham, N. J., "many } r ears ago", and another was 

 reported to have been killed in Sussex County in December 1859. 

 One was reported as found in the smokestack of a steamboat at Erie, 

 Pa., about 1900. There are two incomplete records for Clark County, 

 Ohio, and an unsatisfactory record for Huntsburg. A specimen 

 was taken near Fowler, Ind., during the winter of 1897, and another 

 was collected at Hoveys Lake, Posey County, "some years before 

 1913." One was taken at Hillsboro, Iowa, in 1860, and another was 

 captured alive at Sigourney on April 25, 1921. A specimen was 

 taken at Omaha, Nebr., on December 17, 1893. There are a few 

 records for Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., and one was collected 

 at Wells in April 1899. In southern Idaho a speciman was taken in 

 December 1910 at St. Anthony. One was taken at McCloud, Calif., 

 on September 26, 1913, while there are three records from Quincy, 

 one being a specimen collected on May 12, 1894. 



Closely allied races of this owl are found in northern Europe and 

 Asia. 



[Author's note: This owl may breed regularly within the limits 

 of the United States, as the following two records, which must for the 

 present be considered as casual, seem to indicate. On June 18, 1915, 

 Grinnell and Storer (1924) collected in the Yosemite region a pair of 

 great gray owls that had almost certainly bred near there and found 

 a nest that probably belonged to this pair. More recently, Dr. 

 Thomas S. Roberts (1936) has reported the taking of a nest and eggs 

 of this owl in northern Minnesota, on April 4, 1935.] 



Egg dates. — Alaska and Arctic Canada: 3 records, May 15, June 19, 

 and July 19. 



Alberta: 15 records, March 23 to May 15; 8 records, April 9 to 

 May 1, indicating the height of the season. 



SCOTIAPTEX NEBULOSA BARBATA (Latham) 

 SIBERIAN GRAY OWL 

 HABITS 



The above name appears in our latest Check-List (1931) in place of 

 the Lapp owl (Scotiaptex lapponica) , winch has long been supposed 

 to occur, as a rare straggler from northeastern Siberia, on the Bering 

 Sea coast of Alaska. The record of its occurrence here is based on a 



