IN THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT 133 



attracted by the shining of the light. At least I 

 suppose they were attracted so, for they did not seem 

 to be on the hunt, but only flew backwards and for- 

 wards, backwards and forwards, now nearer, now 

 farther off, and sometimes they almost brushed my 

 face. I have never heard these birds make any sound 

 when on the hunt. But this pair, when startled from 

 their resting-place, almost invariably took wing with a 

 loud half-croak, half-wheeze. For they spent all the 

 hours of daylight for several days down on the ground 

 in the scrub by the edge of a lake, and I never saw 

 them hunting during the day. I do not say they 

 never hunt in daylight; no doubt, when pushed for 

 food, they do. But all the snowy owls I saw, and I 

 saw several, were only diurnal in so far as they sat 

 about and occasionally moved from point to point in 

 the daytime. 



On November the 25th, driving home from a 

 sleigh journey I saw, at about two o'clock in the 

 day, a snowy owl sitting on a telegraph-post by the 

 side of the high-road not two miles from Winnipeg. 

 I pulled up underneath and sat looking up at him. 

 Judged from below he was, I think, the whitest 

 specimen I ever saw ; I could not detect a single spot 

 upon him. He remained there perfectly unconcerned. 



/T^.^-^rv^ 



