54 BRITISH BIRDS. 



of July, 1812, he discovered that thesfe birds breed 

 there, and live chiefly upon Rabbits, the Alpine 

 Hare, the Ptarmigan, and other birds. He de- 

 scribes the male bird to be of an immaculate white, 

 but others are mottled with brown, and he supposes 

 them to be the female, or the young wtiich have 

 not attained to mature plumage. Montagu says 

 this bird rather exceeds the Eagle Owl in size; 

 that it measures nearly two feet in length, and 

 sometimes weighs above three pounds ; while 

 Edwards and other ornithologists describe it as 

 being less. The irides are orange yellow ; the bill 

 black and nearly covered with feathers ; feet, to the 

 claws the same. In the stuffed specimen from 

 which the above figure was sketched, the head, 

 coverts, back, breast, and belly were thinly marked 

 with brownish dusky spots ; on the latter parts and 

 sides, these spots assumed rather a more wavy 

 shape, and the primary and secondary quills were 

 somewhat barred near the tips. The abode of 

 these birds is chiefly in the arctic regions ; they 

 are met with in Norway, Sweden, Lapland, 

 Russia, Siberia, Kamtschatka, Hudson's Bay, and 

 Greenland. 



