19a THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



Reymers' time, one of these Owls was found sitting on the rock 

 during a severe winter ; it was not, however, shot. About thirty 

 years ago, an inhabitant, who was no sportsman, informed me that 

 he had seen a large white Gull without a head flying about on 

 Sandy Island. Undoubtedly this was a Snowy Owl. This is all 

 that can be recorded of this imposing bird, so far as this island is 

 concerned. This poverty of records, however, is strange in regard 

 to a species which, in northern Scandinavia, belongs to the common 

 breeding species, and occurs pretty frequently in England, and 

 annually in Scotland. Moreover, it is a plentiful winter visitant 

 in the Baltic Provinces, sixty individuals having actually in one 

 — of course exceptional — case, been shot during the winter months 

 of 1858-59 in the neighbourhood of Konigsberg. 



The breeding range of the Snowy Owl extends over all Arctic 

 districts of the Northern Hemisphere. Feilden met with it in 

 Grinnell Land in as high a latitude as 82° 40' N. latitude, and found 

 their nests in 82" 33'. He states that tliej' nest very numerously 

 at Discovery Bay, latitude 81° 44' N. 



36. — Hawk Owl [Habicht Eule]. 

 STRIX NISORIA, Wolfi 



Strix nisnria. Naumann, i. 427. 



Hawk Owl. Dresser, v. 301. 



Chouette caparacoch. Temminck, Manud, i. 86, iii. 47. 



As regards the last species here recorded, I have in conclusion 

 to state that it, like several of its relatives, has only been shot here 

 once. This example was stuffed in the thirties bj' ' old Koopmaun," 

 the first taxidermist on Heligoland, who sold it and sent it to 

 Hamburg. Since that time the Owl has been seen here twice, but 

 has never again been shot. 



The species breeds from Norway to Kamtschatka, and if, as 

 Alfred Newton thinks, the Hawk Owls inhabiting America are not 

 specitically distinct from those of the Old World, it nests in that 

 part of the world also from Alaska to Newfoundland. 



Dresser, however, separates them as two independent species — 

 the European (Sarnia ulula), and the American {S. funerea). 



' Snrnia v/ti/a (Linn.). 



