78 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
the dark-brown color varies much in different specimens; frequently both upper and 
under parts are very distinctly banded transversely, and sometimes this color pre- 
dominates on the back; plumage of the legs and toes pure snowy-white; bill and 
claws horn-color; irides yellow. 
Total length, female, about twenty-six inches; wing, seventeen to nineteen; 
tail, ten inches. Male, about twenty-two inches; wing, seventeen; tail, nine inches. 
As a winter visitor, throughout all New England, this bird 
is a rather common species. It is often taken on the islands 
in Massachusetts Bay, where it feeds on fish that have been 
thrown up on the shore by the tide, birds, wounded sea- 
fowl, and even dead animals, as I am informed by a reliable 
person who once shot one while perched on and eating 
a dead horse on the beach. The flight of this Owl is rapid 
and protracted. I have seen an individual chase and cap- 
ture a Snow Bunting (P. nivalis) from a flock; and once 
saw one make a swoop at a flock of poultry which had come 
out from their house on a fine day, but which immediately 
retreated on the appearance of their enemy. The Snowy 
Owl hunts both in the daylight and twilight: he seems to 
prefer cloudy, gloomy days to bright ones, and is most 
active just before a storm. Audubon says that this Owl 
captures living fish in the water by standing quietly by the 
margin, and seizing its prey with its claws, as it appears 
near the surface: whether this is a regular habit or not, I 
cannot say. J never saw one do so; and I have conversed 
with several hunters who have shot numbers of specimens, 
and they all were ignorant of such a fact. 
Of the breeding habits of this Owl, we are ignorant. 
The Hudson’s Bay, and other northern countries, are its 
summer homes. Wheelwright, in his “ Spring and Sum- 
mer in Lapland,” gives the only description of its nest and 
eges accessible to me at present. He says :— 
“The egg of the Snowy Owl measures 2} inches in length, and 
1? inches in breadth: its color is pure-white. The nest is nothing 
more than a large boll of reindeer moss, placed on the ledge of a 
bare fell. ‘The old birds guard it most jealously ; in fact, the Lap- 
landers often kill them with a stick when they are robbing the 
