NYCTEA NIVEA. 179 



They are also accompanied by a large number of skins of Nyctea nivea, showing 

 that that bird is abundant in the quarter whence they come. Herr Moschler 

 also had assurances from his correspondents in Labrador that the Esquimaux, 

 who brought these eggs to the Moravian missionaries as those of the Snowy 

 Owl, reported that the bird always breeds on the ground in bare places, and 

 often lays a considerable number of eggs. This story, as I had the pleasure 

 of stating to the Zoological Society when exhibiting the present specimen, was 

 corroborated by the evidence of various other observers (P. Z. S., 1861, pp. 394, 

 395), both in Europe and America ; but its truth has since been most com- 

 pletely and satisfactorily confirmed by Mr. Wheelwright's discovery, which I 

 shall recount in the next section.] 



[§ 590. Three. — Wihri-jaur, Lulea Lappmark, 5 June, 1862. 

 From Mr. H. W. Wheelwright's Collection. 



I have already, in the communication to the Zoological Society before 

 alluded to, mentioned (P. Z. S., 1861, p. 395) Mr. Wolley's unsuccessful eftbrts 

 to obtain eggs of the Snowy Owl from Northex'n Lapland, as well as my own 

 attempts, which up to the past season of 1863 have been equally ineffectual. 

 He several times met with people who had found nests of this bird, and states 

 (Forhandl. Skand. Naturf. 7de Mode, Christiania, 1857, p. 221) that he was 

 told the old birds sometimes attack persons who approach their nests. They 

 commonly seemed to breed in the districts explored by him only when the 

 lemmings are unusually abundant ; but even then, from the vast extent and 

 desolate character of the mountainous country they frequent, it is almost a 

 matter of chance for a man to stumble on a nest. From his chief agent, who 

 since Mr. Wolley's death has been in my own employment, I learned that 

 from the 16th to the 24th of May is supposed to be the time when they usually 

 breed ; and that in 1860 a Lapp, who, unfortunately, was not one of his regular 

 collectors, found a nest with six eggs, which, instead of preserving, he ate. 

 It was therefore with great pleasure that I heard from IMr. Wheelwright that 

 better luck had attended his endeavours to the same end in a more south- 

 western district. Writing to me from Quickjock, on the 6th June 1862, he 

 says :— 



" I thought I should have good news to tell you before I shut up. ... I sent 

 two Lapps up to the breeding-place of Strix nyctea, about ten sea-miles hence 

 (the way was so bad, and the snow so deep on the fells, that they said I coidd 

 never get there) ; and this morning they have come back with the nest, six 

 eggs, and the old female (as white as snow) of the Snowy Owl. . . . The nest 

 is nothing more than a layer of reindeer moss and a few feathers — very few, 

 laid on the bare fell ; no sticks or anything else. They say they do not 

 believe there is another nest in this district ; but still I shall have another try 

 in another locality. The eggs are a little sat on ; so six was the full number 

 of this Owl. The eg^ in my collection, which Liljeborg took on the fells 

 near Ilammerfest, was one of nine ', and considerably smaller than these I have 



* [Mr* Wheelwright was, of course, only writing from memory. A Snowv 

 Owl's nest was found by Herr Liljeborg on the fells between ffisterdal and Guld- 

 brandsdal, and contained seven eggs (ffifversigt af K. Vet.-Akad. Forhandl., 1844, 



