472 On the Nesting in Confinement of the Snowy Owl. 
prove fertile. The same female has during the present year 
been more successfully paired with another male obtained by 
Mr. Fountaine, and the result was a clutch of eight eggs, 
which were laid at the following dates, viz. 21st, 23rd, 25th, 
27th, 29th, and 3lst May, and on the 2nd and 5th June, and 
of which six were hatched on the 24th, 26th, 28th, and 30th 
June, and on Ist and 5th July. The latest hatched nestling 
disappeared on 6th July; and Mr. Fountaine is of opinion 
that it must have died and been devoured by one of its 
parents, and that the like fate overtook the two unhatched 
eges which disappeared at the same time. 
Some days subsequently to this catastrophe, the nestling 
which was hatched on Ist July died, and that which was 
hatched on 26th June committed suicide in a pan of water 
which was supplied for the use of its parents. 
By the kind permission of Mr. Fountaine I visited the three 
surviving nestlings on 19th July, and was glad to find them 
flourishing, with the exception of some injury which one of 
them had suffered from a blow inflicted by the talons of its 
mother when irritated by the removal from the aviary of the 
nestling which was drowned. 
The first-hatched nestling assumed the dark slate-coloured 
down when 15 days old, the second at the age of 14 days, 
the third at that of 13 days, the fourth when 11 days old, and 
the fifth when 10 days old. 
Mr. Fountaine’s servant, who has the care of these Owls, 
and has carefully watched their changes, informed me that 
the nestlings are nude when hatched, and that the covering 
of white down makes its appearance at the end of the second 
day from the date of hatching. 
He had, by desire of Mr. Fountaine, particularly watched 
one of the nestlings whilst changing from the white to the 
dark slaty brown: he observed the white down beginning to 
fall off about 10 o’clock one morning, and by 5 p.m. on that 
day it had nearly all fallen off, leaving the bird almost bare ; 
but by 6.30 a.m. on the following day the nestling was well 
covered with the new dark-coloured down, which Mr. Foun- 
taine considers to be of a somewhat coarser texture than the 
white down that precedes it. 
