OWLS. 239 



and when it commences its howling it seems as if it 

 were in great distress. It is not, however, very cha- 

 racteristically a bird of season, but rather a bird of 

 scene. The short-eared owl, or hawk owl (strix bra- 

 chyotus) is more a bird of season; but it is a winter 

 bird. The scops-eared owl (strix scops) is but a 

 summer bird in the several parts of Europe, and in 

 England it is exceedingly rare. Its nest never has 

 been met with in the island, nor is there any authentic 

 account of more than a single straggler at a time. The 

 great horned owl, or eagle owl (strix bubo) is more 

 frequent, and diffused, but still it is a rare bird. It is 

 a bird of the open wilds, and probably is wafted to this 

 country by storms. 



The largest and most handsome of the smooth-headed 

 owls, the snowy owl (strix nycted) is also rare, even 

 in the north of England, where (we believe) it has been 

 met with only in winter, but it has been represented as 

 occasionally breeding in the Orkney islands. It is a 

 bird of the polar regions, and found in Lapland, Iceland, 

 and Greenland. We have heard accounts of its pre- 

 sence in Orkney and Shetland, that we could not very 

 well question ; but of no satisfactory case of its having 

 built a nest or hatched a brood even there. It is the 

 same with the little owl (strix passerina\ which is 

 a native of warmer climates, and which has been some- 

 times, though very rarely, met with on the south and 

 east coast. So that, out of the eight species of owl 

 that are met with in Britain, only two of the smooth- 

 headed ones are common. The white, or hissing owl, 

 and the brown, or hooting owl ; arid these, like the 



