BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. O17 
fruit trees, skunks, more destructive to the poultry than the owls 
are, mink, weasels, etc., which will more than balance the 
account. Let the owls ali live, and securely protect the poultry 
from not only the owls, but the animals, too. The habits of 
the species are too familiar to repeat them here, as the young 
have been so frequently captured for pets and reared in cap- 
tivity that little of interest can be readily added. But woe to 
the unprotected poultry when one of these civilized marauders 
assumes his liberty in a favorable hour. Neither Mr. Wash- 
burn, nor any other observers have added anything to the 
local history of this species. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Large and strongly organized; ear tufts large, erectile; bill 
strong, fully curved; wing rather long, third quill usually 
longest; tail short; legs and toes robust and densely covered 
with short downy feathers; claws very strong, sharp, curved; 
variable in plumage from nearly white to dark brown, 
usually with the upper parts dark brown, every feather mot- 
tled, and with regular transverse lines of pale ashy and red- 
dish-fulvous, the latter being the color of all the plumage at 
the base of the feathers; ear tufts dark brown, nearly black, 
edged on their inner webs with dark fulvous; a black spot 
above the eye; radiating feathers behind the eye varying in 
color from nearly wkite to dark reddish-fulvous, usually the 
latter; feathers of the facial disc tipped with black; throat and 
neck before, white; breast with wide longitudinal stripes of 
black; other under parts variegated with white and fulvous, 
and every feather having transverse narrow lines of dark 
brown; middle of the abdomen frequently, but not always, 
white; legs and toes varying from white to dark fulvous, usually 
pale fulvous, in most specimens unspotted, but frequently and 
probably always in mature specimens, with transverse narrow 
bars of dark brown; quills brown, with wide transverse bands 
of cinereous, and usually tinged on the inner webs with pale 
fulvous; tail the same, with the fulvous predominating on the 
outer feathers; iris yellow; bill and claws bluish-black. 
Length (female), 21 to 25; wing, 14.50 to 16; tail, 10. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
NYCTEA NYCTEA (L.). (376.) 
SNOWY OWL. 
Although never an abundant, or even a common species, the 
Snowy Owl was formally seen in the middle and southern sec- 
tions of the State much more frequently than in late years. 
Two different causes have doubtless contributed to this de- 
crease. In the early settlement of the country they were left 
