THE GREAT WHITE OWL. 161 



all, or nearly all, be supported during the long winter ; and if 

 they were not taken by the owl, the jer-falcon, and other 

 predatory birds, they again would be lost. So, when the 

 wind beats, and the snow drives, so that they would sweep 

 the birds to destruction, out comes the snowy owl, clad in his 

 armour of impenetrable fur, and riding on the wing of the 

 tempest, keeps holiday amid the wildest turmoil of nature. 

 Mountain hares and other small quadrupeds would meet with 

 the same fate from the weather; and therefore they also 

 become the prey of the owl. The number of those birds 

 is, of course, tempered to the necessity that there is for 

 them; and therefore the quantity of birds of which they 

 make prey tend rather to preserve than to exterminate the 

 species. 



The time of day is a matter of indifference to the snowy 

 owl during the storms or the fogs. When the sun is hot, it 

 takes shelter under some ledge of those wild rocks, in the 

 fastnesses of which it nestles, and annually rears its brood of 

 a single pair. But when the snow drives it is dim twilight 

 all day long, and not very different during the fogs. At 

 these times the snowy owl flies low, after the manner of the 

 eagle-owl, and the prey which it captures is so abundant, 

 that it not only waxes fat during the storms, but retains its 

 fatness when drifted by the winds to the distance of a thou- 

 sand miles. It is found in the Orkney and Shetland isles, 

 especially the latter, though not very abundantly, and gene- 

 rally in such obscure places that the nest is not often seen. 

 Its principal food is birds, upon the moors of those islands, 

 and rabbits on the sandy banks by the margin of the sea. 

 Countries in which snow dims the eyes, or fogs cloud the 

 vision of those animals on which it preys, appear to be the 

 most congenial to this interesting bird. Accordingly it very 

 rarely comes to the mainland of Britain ; and when it does it 

 is always during violent snow-storms from the north, which 



VOL. I. M 



