2o6 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



I02. Nyctea nyctea (Linn.). 

 Snowy Owl. Arctic Owl. 



Rare and irregular winter visitor. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



November 17, 1871, a female taken, Longfellow Marshes, R. Deane and W. Brewster. 

 January i, 1894, a bird seen, Cambridge, A. S. Oilman. 



Snowy Owls visit eastern Massachusetts at irregular intervals and in vary- 

 ing numbers. During some seasons, as in the autumn and winter of 1 876-1 877, 

 and that of 1905- 1906, the beautiful birds are taken or seen by scores or even 

 hundreds, but ordinarily they are far from numerous. They occur oftenest in 

 November or December and on or very near the seacoast. Here they haunt 

 sand dunes, salt marshes and other wide expanses of open ground. During their 

 less frequent visits to inland localities they sometimes appear in densely populated 

 parts of towns and cities. As they move about freely by day they naturally 

 attract general attention, and as they are seldom very shy many of them are 

 killed by local gunners not long after their first appearance. Most of the sur- 

 vivors go further south before the close of December, but some of them remain 

 through the entire winter. The return flight in spring is never very noticeable, 

 probably for the reason that comparatively few birds are left to undertake it. 



My notes furnish the following records of the occurrence of the Snowy Owl 

 in the region covered by the present Memoir : — 



November 17, 1871. Mr. Ruthven Deane and I found a female Snowy Owl in 

 the Longfellow Marshes, Cambridge, sitting on the ground, surrounded by a mob of 

 noisy and excited Crows. Approaching under cover of a haystack, Mr. Deane shot 

 the bird which is still in his collection. 



December 3, 1890. At sunset this evening Mr. Alfred L. Danielson saw a Snowy 

 Owl flying past the Cambridge Gas-House, following up the course of Charles River. 



1892. According to report a bird was shot some time in the late autumn or early 

 winter of this year in Brattle Square, Cambridge. I think the specimen was preserved, 

 but I do not know what eventually became of it. 



December 31, 1893. January i, 1894. On the afternoon of December 31 a 

 Snowy Owl was seen perched in the top of an elm in the rear of Mr. Edwin H. Abbot's 

 house on Follen Street, Cambridge, and later that same day it visited Berkeley Street. 

 The following morning it appeared in Linnsan Street directly opposite the Botanic 

 Garden. It naturally attracted much attention ; indeed it was followed about on both 

 occasions by a mob of men and boys. Finally a man with a gun appeared and shot 

 at the bird which flew off westward over the Observatory grounds. 



