Al MZ: CORACITFORMES CHAP. 
Nyctea scandiaca, the white Snowy Owl, occasionally exhibit- 
ing spots or broken bars of black, has ill-developed facial discs and 
hardly visible tufts, but very thickly feathered feet. It inhabits 
the circumpolar fjelds, tundras, and barren grounds, straying as 
far as Britain, France, Lower Austria, the Indus Valley and the 
Bermudas in winter; but when rodents abound on the fells of Norway 
and Sweden a greater number remain there to breed. The flight 
is strong and easy; the habits are diurnal; the food consists of 
lemmings, rats, mice, squirrels, hares, birds large or small, fishes, and 
doubtless insects. It is called Harfiing (hare-catcher) in Scandinavia. 
This Owl either catches the fishes in one claw as it skims over the 
water, or crouches on some stone or piece of ice till the moment comes 
to strike ; at times, moreover, it will follow sportsmen in the field. 
The ery, seldom heard, is wild and wailing. The large, oval eggs, 
numbering from three to five, or even ten when food is plentiful, 
are deposited in holes scraped in the soil on ledges of rocks or 
other eminences, sometimes lined with moss and feathers; they 
appear occasionally to be laid in pairs at intervals. The parents, 
though usually wary, will attack a man at the nest. 
The cosmopolitan genus Scops, found almost everywhere except 
in the extreme north, Australia, Oceania, and the southern portion 
of South America, contains some fifty so-called species which it 
would be useless to discuss in the present state of our informa- 
tion, though certain of them are mentioned below. Rufous, 
brown, and grey phases undoubtedly occur, but the various 
plumages are still very imperfectly understood. Perhaps two- 
thirds of the forms occur in the Old World, yet only one (S. giv) 
inhabits the Palaearctic Region west of Japan, though there we 
find S. semitorques. The general coloration is a mixture of grey, 
brown, chocolate or rufous, wath a less amount of black, yellowish, 
and white; some species are finely vermiculated, others hardly 
at all, while several are almost barred below and many are dis- 
tinctly banded on the tail. The facial discs are incomplete, but 
the head-tufts are well developed; the metatarsi and toes are 
feathered, or bristly, or the latter are occasionally bare. Scops 
giu, the Petit Due of France, which visits Britain and Holland, 
extends over Central and Southern Europe, Asia Minor, Pales- 
tine, Persia, and Turkestan, occurring in North Africa, and 
migrating as far southwards as Abyssinia and Senegal. Sub- 
species occupy the Ethiopian Region, and Asia to Japan and 
