NAMES OF OWLS 



the sun. The snowy owl, which lives, during summer 

 at least, in a country of perpetual daylight, would fare 

 but badly were it to be nocturnal or even crepuscular. 

 The popular belief in the night-loving habits of owls is, 

 of course, accurate in so far that the majority of owls 

 do, as a matter of fact, hunt at night. But that is quite 

 a different thing from saying that no owl can suffer the 

 day. The names Heliodilus, " sun-fearer," and Photo- 

 dilus, " light fearer," serve only to perpetuate this 

 inaccuracy. These names are those of two Madagascar 

 genera of owls. The snowy owl does not share in a 

 curious defect of organization which mars many owls. 

 The earholes, particularly large, do not show either 

 superficially or in the underlying skull an asymmetry 

 which is a common feature of strigine architecture. 

 Like others of its kind, Nyctea nivea (or scandiaca ; it 

 has several names, like most birds that have been long 

 known) is rapacious in mode of life, a characteristic 

 which involves adequate beak and claw, and has been 

 largely responsible for placing the owls with the hawks, 

 eagles, and vultures, and separating them only from 

 those birds as nocturnal Rapaces. On the other hand, 

 the noiseless flight, the dull greys and browns of colour 

 have led some to associate these birds with the tribe of 

 goatsuckers ; a likeness of plumage and flight which may 

 be, after all, not so delusive as a test of affinity as some 

 such resemblances are apt to be. All that one can say 

 at present with even moderate certainty is that the 

 Striges are not hawks ; they are not by any means to 

 be placed in the same division with the Accipitres. 

 What they are exactly is left to future enquirers ; at 

 present the anatomical knowledge, and also the absence 

 of intermediate types which show a leaning, forbids 

 any dogmatism. The snowy owl pursues birds, and has, 

 as have most carnivorous creatures, a distinct partiality 

 tor the wounded and therefore defenceless birds. It is 



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