On the Nesting in Confinement of the Snowy Owl. 471 
immature specimen of the very scarce Baza sumatrensis, a 
species which was only known as occurring in the island of 
Sumatra till Mr. Hume, in vol. iii. of ‘Stray Feathers,’ p. 313, 
described two older birds—a male obtaimed in the extreme 
south of the Tenasserim provinces, and a presumed female 
from Native Sikhim. Mr. Hume was, in the first instance, 
doubtful as to the identity of these specimens with B. suma- 
trensis; but the doubt was subsequently removed by a com- 
parison of the Tenasserim specimen with one from Sumatra, 
preserved in the British Museum, as recorded in ‘ Stray Fea- 
thers,’ vol. vil. p. 444. 
The measurements of both sexes are noted in Mr. Hume’s 
article above referred to, and they lead to the inference that 
the specimen in the British Museum must be a male, though 
marked as a female by Mr. Wallace. 
There only remains to be mentioned one other known 
species of the genus Baza, the beautiful Baza lophotes, as 
regards which I would refer to the latest and, in some re- 
spects, the fullest account which has been published respect- 
ing it, viz. that given in Captain Legge’s ‘ Birds of Ceylon,’ 
where, amongst other matters, the interesting subject of its 
geographical distribution is carefully discussed. An impor- 
tant note on this species, as observed by Mr. Davison in 
Tenasserim, ought also to be mentioned, and will be found in 
‘Stray Feathers,’ vol. vi. p. 24. 
XLVIII.—On the Nesting in Confinement of the Snowy Owl. 
By J. H. Gurney. 
In ‘ The Ibis’ for 1875, p. 517, I recorded what I believe to 
be the first known instance of the nesting m confinement of 
the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca), and of the successful 
rearing of some of the young birds, thus produced, in the 
aviary of Mr. Edward Fountaine of Easton, in Norfolk. 
In ‘ The Ibis’ for the current year, p. 144, I further re- 
corded that a female bird, one of those thus reared in 1875, 
had mated with a male that Mr. Fountaine had purchased, 
and had laid eggs during the summer of 1879, which did not 
