Snowy Owl 



525 



marked more or less with slaty brown or dusky, especially on the tips of the 

 feathers. The female is much larger, ranging from twenty-three to twenty- 

 seven inches, and is much darker colored, only the face, fore neck, middle of 

 the breast, and feet being pure white, the remaining portions being heavily 

 barred with dusky. The downy nestling is a uniform dusky brown, or deep 

 sooty grayish, becoming paler on the legs and feet, and is said to moult directly 

 into the mature plumage. 



The Snowy Owl is circumpolar in distribution, spending the summer in the 

 high Arctic regions and straggling southward for a greater or less distance in 

 winter. Thus in North America 

 at this season it is rare west of 

 the Rocky Mountains and south 

 of the northern border of the 

 United States, but in the east it 

 is sometimes common as far 

 south as the fortieth parallel, 

 and has been known to reach the 

 southern tier of states, while in 

 the Old World it comes south 

 either regularly or accidentally 

 to the British Islands, Germany, 

 central Asia, and the north- 

 western Himalayas. It should 

 not, however, be understood 

 that all or even any very con- 

 siderable portion of these Owls 

 migrate very far south of their 

 Arctic home, for those which 

 enter the United States are but a 

 portion of those which pass the 

 winter near the northern limit 

 of trees. At irregular intervals, 

 and from unknown causes, but 

 presumably from lack of food, 

 there are extensive invasions of 

 this Owl, such, for example, as that during the winter of 1876-1877, when, 

 according to Mr. Ruthven Deane, more than five hundred were seen in New 

 England alone. Another incursion, but of less extent, occurred in the winter 

 of 1892-1893, and a much larger one during 1902-1903, from which it 

 appears that these migrations are separated by intervals of ten or fifteen years. 



The favorite haunts of the Snowy Owl are the immense moss- and lichen- 

 covered tundras of the boreal regions, where it apparently leads an easy existence 

 during the short Arctic summer. It is mainly diurnal in its habits, but like most 

 birds it is more active in search of its prey during the early morning and again 

 toward evening, and occasionally it may hunt at night. Its favorite attitude is 



FlG. 163. Snowy Owl, Nyctea nyctea. 



