THE WHITE OWL 



Caprimulgidae in the large collection of birds at the 

 Zoo ; and that will doubtless be a Podargus. 



THE SNOWY OWL 



It is true that visitors to the Zoological Gardens are 

 not so much in search of British animals as of unfamiliar 

 exotics ; but the snowy owl (Nyctea nived) may be fairly 

 taken as an example of the owl tribe, though it does 

 occasionally creep, intrude, or climb into the fold of 

 British birds. It cannot, however, be really considered 

 to be a British bird in the full sense of the adjective, 

 inasmuch as it is at most a rare straggler. As its 

 plumage really tells us, the snowy owl is a fowl of cir- 

 cumpolar range, though some ornithologists have 

 differentiated an American from an European form. 

 These birds prefer the desolate and snowy tracts of the 

 extreme north, and " there," as Isaiah said, " shall the 

 great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather 

 under her shadow." The late Dr. Stanley, in his 

 well-known book upon birds, even went so far as to say 

 that the snowy owl, when surprised in more temperate 

 latitudes, as it has been on more than one occasion, 

 hopped from snowy patch to snowy patch, and avoided 

 the snowless intervals, where it would be more con- 

 spicuous. The bird is, in fact, one of those polar crea- 

 tures, like the white bear, which appear to be coloured 

 in relation to their normal surroundings, and in which 

 this white colour is borne winter and summer alike. 

 Nyctea, however, is not wholly white, but spotted with 

 black. This owl is typically owl-like in its form ; in- 

 deed, the group of Strigidae is one which is sharply 

 marked off from other birds ; there is never any doubt 

 whatever about a given bird as to whether it is or is not 

 an owl. It is also one of the largest of owls, and dispels 

 in its own person a common belief about owls, i.e. that 

 they are not only nocturnal, but cannot bear to look upon 



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