ELEEVENTEH ANNUAL REPORT. 185 
clear lemon-yellow, exactly as the rose blush clothes the entire 
plumage of some gulls in spring. The morning after the bird 
was killed the color was gone, the plumage being dead white.” 
Its natural home is on open, treeless plains, and when it wanders 
south in winter it is almost always to be found perched on a rock 
or on the snow in an open field. During some years Snowy Owls 
enter the United States in large numbers, and may be so abun- 
dant in one locality that it seems as if they were living in flocks. 
The Snowy Owl can see well in the daytime, without which 
faculty it would indeed be helpless during the months of sunlight 
throughout the Arctic summer. It has a strong, rapid flight, 
although noiseless, and according to Audubon, is able to capture 
ducks, pigeons, and grouse on the wing. It is fond of fish, and 
is said to swoop down upon them, osprey fashion, and seize them 
in the water. In the north, ptarmigan and hares form its princi- 
pal food. 
Its nest is rarely found. This consists merely of a few feathers 
placed in a slight hollow in the ground. An unusually large num- 
ber of eggs is laid, three to eleven, and this is doubtless due to 
the many dangers from ravens and Arctic foxes, to which such 
a terrestrial nest must be exposed. It is only, however, while 
the parents are absent that there is any danger from marauders, 
as these owls are strong and courageous, and few creatures would 
care to face those sharp talons, which are controlled by tendons 
as strong as steel. 
The Snowy Owl is a strangely silent bird, and Arctic explorers 
and those who have observed it in captivity have recorded nothing 
concerning its voice, except that when disturbed it hisses and 
snaps its beak after the usual owl fashion. That it has a voice 
and an unusually strange one, however, was made apparent to me 
on one occasion not long ago when one of these birds was brought 
into a dark room, preparatory to an examination with the ophthal- 
moscope. It suddenly gave utterance to a series of loud, piercing 
screams, a shrill cachinnation so startling that the man who was 
holding the bird nearly dropped it. This single utterance is the 
only vocal sound I have ever heard from this species, although I 
have sometimes watched a cageful of seven, off and on, during 
the whole of a winter's night. 
Although no trace of feathery ears is visible externally, yet 
close examination will show them developed slightly beyond the 
other feathers of the head. In general structure these owls stand 
midway between the great horned (Bubo), and the Screech 
Owls (Otus). 
