OP NEW ENGLAND. 341 



opens and shuts Ihem, and listen to his hisses. Approach him 

 with a light, see him contract the pupils of his ej'es, and then, 

 as 3'ou retreat, expand them until they seem like glowing orbs 

 of fire. Approach him with food, and observe the eager fe- 

 rocity with which he swallows it, doing so at a single gulp when 

 possible. Approach him again, attempt to soothe him, and 

 you cannot hesitate to pronounce him an irreclaimable savage. 



(d). His cries are all unearthly. Sometimes he utters a 

 horrid scream, sometimes notes which suggest the strangula- 

 tion of some unhappy person in the woods, and at other times 

 his loud hooting, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Being, it 4s said, attracted 

 by camp-fires, like other species, he often amuses the traveler 

 with these agreeable and soothing sounds. In short, no bird 

 has a Character less pleasant to contemplate than the Great 

 Horned Owl. 



In the space left by a change in the text, it may not be 

 amiss to give an amusing instance of the fictions credited by 

 certain old writers. Charlevoix, says Wilson, wrote that cer- 

 tain owls caught mice for their winter's store, and, confining 

 them, fattened them on grain. 



VII. NYCTEA 



(A) NiVEA. 2 (American) Snowy Owl. 



(In Massachusetts, not uncommon in winter near the sea.) 



(a). About two feet long. Snowy white; more or less 

 marked with brown or blackish. 



(b). The eggs are laid on the ground in Arctic countries. 

 They are white, and nearly or quite 2^ inches long. 



(c). The Snowy Owls, as their very thick and white plumage 

 suggests, are Arctic birds, though in winter they wander south- 

 ward in considerable numbers, being then more common in 

 Massachusetts than any other species of this family with so 

 high a range. It is said that, though rare in the interior, they 

 are of not un frequent occurrence along the coast, since they 

 feed much upon fish, which they often catch for themselves. 



2 The specific name has recently been established as scandiaca var. arctica. 



