THE LAPLAND OWL. Ill 



prey by day as well as by night. It preys on lemmings 

 and rats. When the lemmings migrate, the gray owl 

 follows in pursuit of them, and specimens may then 

 be procured by naturalists in the south of Norway. 

 The ground colour of this handsome owl is gray, 

 marked on the back, wings, and under parts, with 

 brownish-black ; beak short ; irides bright yellow ; 

 the facial feathers are fine and soft, pale gray in colour, 

 and each feather is tipped with blackish-gray; its 

 length is at least two feet six inches. 



A few years since, a bonde, walking through a wood 

 near Christiania, saw a Lapland owl perched on a tree. 

 The poor fellow was scared at the sight, and thinking 

 " discretion the better part of valour," he made off as 

 fast as possible ; meeting some companions, he de- 

 scribed to them the extraordinary monster he had just 

 beheld. Their curiosity getting the better of their 

 fears, they procured a rusty musket or two, and re- 

 pairing to the wood, killed the owl. It was afterwards 

 sold to a private gentleman at Christiania for a specie 

 dollar, but the keeper of the museum in the town 

 hearing of it, claimed the bird ; for it is illegal in Nor- 

 way to sell any rare bird to a private individual, it 

 must be placed in the public museum of the place. 

 This owl was kept for some time in the Zoological 

 Museum at Christiania; it is now to be seen in the 

 Royal Museum at Bergen. This rare owl is to be seen 

 in the British Museum. A Norwegian naturalist in- 

 forms me that he has seen a specimen in the museum 

 of a town in Norfolk ; I rather think it must be at 

 Lynn. An English traveller that I met in Norway 

 informed me that a specimen of the Lapland gray owl 

 was to be found in the museum at Oxford. I have 

 searched for it there in vain. 



