SNOWY OWL. 30? 



oLserved to leave its retreat, it is frequently as- 

 sailed by crows and other birds; but it receives 

 their attacks rather as an amusement than an 

 annoyance, and dashes through the air, despising 

 their hostility. 



It preys chiefly on sandpipers, on which it 

 pounces with precision and agility as it skims 

 along the marshes. The specimen given to Mr 

 Bullock's museum had an entire one in its stomach 

 when I shot it, and a mouse perfectly whole was 

 taken from that of the present specimen.* 



Dr Neil has kindly furnished us with the notes 

 which he kept of the habits of the specimen 

 alluded to at page 304. This bird continued for 

 a year and a half in his possession vigorous and 

 healthy. 



' In the beginning of May, 1835, 1 received, at 

 Canonmills Cottage, a live specimen of the Snowy 

 Owl (Syrnia nyctea.} It came in a sort of crib 

 by a trading vessel from Orkney, and arrived in 

 tolerably good plight. A letter from Robert 

 Scarth, Esq. of Skae in Sanda, informed me, that 

 * about the middle of the preceding month of 

 April, a very heavy north-wester had set in, with 

 showers of hail and cold sleet. A large bevy of 

 rooks, snow-flakes, sw r ans, golden-eye ducks, and 

 other northern strangers, were driven by this storm 



* Trans. \Vern. Society, Vol. IV. i. p. 158. 



