SNOWY OWL. 147 



snow-storm; one in Norfolk, in 1814, and one in 1820; a 

 third at Beeston, near Cromer, on the 22nd. of January, 

 and a fourth at St. Faith's, about the end of February, 

 1850. A fifth had been seen at Swannington, the middle of 

 the preceding year; one was killed at Frinsted, in Kent, in 

 1844; one at Langton, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire; and 

 one, as I am informed by Mr. R. A. Julian, Junior, was 

 knocked down with a stick by a boatman, on the bank of 

 the River Tamar, near St. Germans, in Cornwall, in December, 

 1838. One at St. Andrews, in Suffolk, on the 19th. of Feb- 

 ruary, 1847. 'It was shot from the stump of a pollard elm, 

 whence it had been seen to dart down into the field, and 

 then to return to its perch.' It had previously been seen, 

 for there is no reasonable doubt but that it was the same 

 bird, at Brooke, in the county of Norfolk. One was seen 

 near Melbourne, in Derbyshire, on the 20th. of May, 1841; 

 and one obtained near Caithness, in January, 1850, in stormy 

 snowy weather. It was shot with a duck in its talons, which 

 it had carried off from a sportsman by whom the latter had 

 just been killed, and who had previously fired without success 

 to endeavour to make it drop it. In Sutherlandshire these 

 birds are not very unfrequently driven on the north and 

 north-east coasts, after gales from that quarter. 



In Ireland specimens have occurred in the years 1812 and 

 1827: also in 1835, about the 20th. of March, one was shot 

 near Portglenone, in the county of Antrim; on the 21st. 

 another was seen in the same neighbourhood. One was shot 

 in the county of Mayo, also in the month of March; and 

 another in the month of April, in the county of Longford, 

 where another had been procured about the year 1835; one 

 on the 2nd. of December, 1837, on the Scrabo Mountain, in 

 Downshire; and one near Killibegs, in the county of Donegal, 

 in November or December, 1837. 



Large flights of these birds were observed on the coast of 

 Labrador, in the month of November, 1838, on their migra- 

 tion. They accompanied the ship for fourteen days, and 

 frequently alighted on the yards. Four were captured and 

 brought to Belfast by the captain. They have been similarly 

 observed in two different years on the coast of Newfoundland; 

 each time in the month of September. 



They hunt their prey by day, occasionally all day long, 

 and even in the brightest sunshine, on which account I can- 

 not think that their being seen sometimes perched under the 



