8 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 86 



Museum, who kindly pronounced them to be those of speci- 

 mens of Pitymys pinetonim. 



While investigating some of the anatomy of this owl — 

 another practice I am almost invariably guilty of during 

 such operations — there came to hand a package from Mr 

 Edward E. Schmid, the well-known proprietor of an exten- 

 sive Pet Emporium in Washington, containing not only a 

 fine Macaw {Ara macao), but also an unusually good speci- 

 men of a Snowy Owl {Nyctea nyctea). Both specimens had 

 recently died, and they were adults in fine plumage. Mr. 

 Schmid kindly sends me all such material, and has done so 

 for many years. He is well known to the naturalists of the 

 Smithsonian, where he occasionally sends such animals as die 

 on his hands. 



Here was Owl No. 2, and from it I obtained another fine 

 skeleton, together with not a little more of its structure or 

 its anatomy, as some people say. Parts of this were so 

 important that I wrote out a description of them, which will 

 appear elsewhere later on. 



I did not photograph the Barred Owl, though I usually 

 secure negatives of nearly all specimens coming to my study ; 

 I find the prints are often valuable, especially for the use of 

 taxidermists. Turning my camera, however, on the face of 

 this Snowy Owl, I got a good negative of it, a print from 

 which is here reproduced to show how useful such pictures 

 may sometimes be. I have many of them, not only of birds, 

 but of a great number of other animals. This is not an 

 example of the best ones, for the big, yellow eyes took black, 

 which is unfortunate. I have some parrots that it would be 

 hard to say whether they had been taken from dead or from 

 living specimens ; later on I propose to publish some of these 

 — in fact, a few of them are being engraved as I write these 

 lines. 



While contemplating the structure of my Snowy Owl, a 

 curious coincidence occurred, for tivo more of the same species 

 came to hand. This time, however, they came from Copen- 

 hagen, Denmark, being a most generous gift of my friend, 

 Mr. Gerhard Heilmann of that city. I hasten to say that 



