Horned and Hoot Owls 



pounced upon and immediately lifted off its feet lest it use its 

 strong hind legs to escape from its captor. The ptarmigan, on 

 the contrary, is "crushed to earth," but, unlike truth, it may not 

 rise again ; for the owl, spreading its great wings to render those 

 of its victim useless, soon ends its struggles. A bird must be 

 a swift flyer, indeed, that can overtake a duck in the air or a 

 hare afoot. The former it strikes down after the manner of the 

 goshawk. 



But when food begins to fail at the far north, this hardy owl 

 that is able to endure the most intense cold since all do not 

 migrate by any means leaves the moss and lichen-covered tun- 

 dras, and, joining a band of travellers bound southward, appears 

 in the United States sometimes in considerable numbers, espe- 

 cially in the Atlantic states. A northeasterly storm drives many 

 migrants ashore. Some morning when trees and earth are cov- 

 ered with a snowy mantle that the high winds toss and blow, 

 you may see a wraith, a ghostly apparition, gleaming at you with 

 fiery eyes from the evergreen. Here is a miracle of nature : the 

 snow is alive! Winter incarnate sits before you. Juncos and 

 snow buntings whirl about among the snowflakes in scattered 

 flocks; and the wraith, as silently as any spectre, its downy 

 wings outspread, floats off from its high point of vantage in easy 

 circles, then suddenly swooping, seizes a hapless bird in its talons. 

 In boldness and grace of flight it is far more like a hawk than an 

 owl; and, moreover, it is a diurnal bird of prey, comparatively 

 little of its hunting for mice and other food being done at night. 



The Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula caparocti), another northern 

 species that occasionally visits the United States border or be- 

 yond, as far as Pennsylvania, in winter, is of medium size (fifteen 

 inches) and without horns. Its upper parts are ashen brown, the 

 head and nape spotted with white, and the back and some wing 

 feathers barred with white; the remarkably long tail has rounded 

 white bars. A dusky spot and below it a white one mark the 

 middle throat, while the sides of the neck and upper breast are 

 streaked with dusky, and the rest of the under parts are barred 

 with dusky and white. The legs and feet are feathered, and the 

 wings when folded fall far short of the end of the tail. Like a 

 hawk in habits, as in appearance, it is nevertheless an owl, though 

 doubtless the connecting link between the families. While it 



349 



