GILPIN. 
258 BIRDS OF PREY OF NOVA SCOTIA 
that anything that reclaims the science from the divisions of 
sub-families and sub-genera, and innumerable lists of synonyms 
made, not for truth but for personal exaltation, must be hailed 
with pleasure by all true naturalists. Of the family of owls 
which inhabit our Province, the Halifax museum, with the ex- 
ception of the great grey owl (s. laponicum), contains an excel- 
lent collection of every species I have identified myself. The 
great grey owl was taken some vears ago in Pictou County, and 
a specimen was in the collection of the late Dr. McCulloch, of 
Pictou town. This is the only recorded instance I know of its 
being here. The great horned owl (B. virginianus) is common. 
It both breeds and winters, usually keeping in the thick forests, 
seldom coming out in the clear country. I have seen its young 
in the spring, and the adult at all seasons of the year. A speci- 
men shot at Digby, Feb. 1876, when feeding upon a black duck, 
was nearly white, washed by pale ferruginous, and barred 
and spotted light brown. The pure white chin remained un- 
changed, as it has done in every individual I have examined; 
how much otherwise the plumage may have been altered. 
Though not resembling Kichardson’s figure, I thought it may 
have been the Arctic variety. Our camp fires attracted them 
when camping on the shores of a forest lake in Digby county, 
Sept., 1871. By answering their wild feline cries, we kept them 
about us the long night, unseen, yet continually shifting from 
one spruce fir to another, amongst which our camp was pitched. 
Their prey is nocturnal, and thus less likely to be known. 
Grouse, hare, and even ducks may be readily captured by this 
powerful bird, which uses its beak as well as its claws in 
destroying life. A poor pet crow, the favorite of the village at 
Annapolis, visiting every house for its bone, and sleeping now 
in an old porch, now in an unfinished church, or under the eave 
of inhabited houses, alarmed the inmates, beneath whose eaves 
it had sought a roosting plaee, by its shrill cries one calm mid- 
night. On going to its reseue a large nocturnal bird of prey 
floated away. At sunrise it was found dead on the grass be- 
neath, no doubt a victim of this powerfui nocturnal prowler. 
Of the short eared owl] (B. palustris) and the long eared ow} 
