ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 185 



clear lemon-yellow, exactly as the rose blush clothes the entire 

 plumage of some gulls in spring. The morning after the bird 

 was killed the color was gone, the plumage being dead white." 



Its natural home is on open, treeless plains, and when it wanders 

 south in winter it is almost always to be found perched on a rock 

 or on the snow in an open field. During some years Snowy Owls 

 enter the United States in large numbers, and may be so abun- 

 dant in one locality that it seems as if they were living in flocks. 

 The Sno\^y Owl can see well in the da\iime, without which 

 faculty it would indeed be helpless during the months of sunlight 

 throughout the Arctic summer. It has a strong, rapid flight, 

 although noiseless, and according to Audubon, is able to capture 

 ducks, pigeons, and grouse on the wing. It is fond of fish, and 

 is said to swoop down upon them, osprey fashion, and seize them 

 in the water. In the north, ptarmigan and hares form its princi- 

 pal food. 



Its nest is rarel\- found. This consists merely of a few feathers 

 placed in a slight hollow in the ground. An unusually large num- 

 ber of eggs is laid, three to eleven, and this is doubtless due to 

 the many dangers from ravens and Arctic foxes, to which such 

 a terrestrial nest must be exposed. It is only, however, while 

 the parents are absent that there is any danger from marauders, 

 as these owls are strong and courageous, and few creatures would 

 care to face those sharp talons, which are controlled by tendons 

 as strong as steel. 



The Snowy Owl is a strangely silent bird, and Arctic explorers 

 and those who have observed it in captivity have recorded nothing 

 concerning its voice, except that when disturbed it hisses and 

 snaps its beak after the usual owl fashion. That it has a voice 

 and an unusually strange one, however, was made apparent to me 

 on one occasion not long ago when one of these birds was brought 

 into a dark room, preparatory to an examination with the ophthal- 

 moscope. It suddenly gave utterance to a series of loud, piercing 

 screams, a shrill cachinnation so startling that the man who was 

 holding the bird nearly dropped it. This single utterance is the 

 only vocal sound I have ever heard from this species, although I 

 have sometimes watched a cageful of seven, off and on. during 

 the whole of a winter's night. 



Although no trace of featliery ears is visible externally, yet 

 close examination will show them developed slightly beyond the 

 other feathers of the head. In general structure these owls stand 

 midwav .between the great homed {Bubo^, and the Screech 

 Owls (Otus). 



