ORDER ACCIPITRES. 



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regions. Captain Parry met with it in Melville Island. The 

 Calmucs have superstitious notions with regard to this bird, 

 and predict futurity from its mode or direction of flight. 



The common White Owl of this country, (Strix flammea, 

 Lin.,) has the beak straight to near the tip, while it is arched from 

 the base in the other species, from which circumstance some 

 naturalists have separated it into a subgenus. It is full four- 

 teen inches long ; the eyes are encircled with a large circle of 

 white plumes ; the irides seem to vary from nearly black to 

 yellow, the upper parts of the body, the wing coverts, and 

 secondaries are pale yellow ; on each side of the shafts two gray 

 and two white spots are placed alternately ; the outside of the 

 quills are yellow, the inner white, marked on each side with 

 four black spots ; the upper sides of the tail feathers are marked 

 with obscure dusky bars ; the legs are feathered to the feet, 

 which are covered with short hairs, and the edge of the middle 

 claw is serrated. These characters will sufficiently distinguish 

 it from the other species so common to this country, the brown 

 or screech owl. 



This species, so common in our own country, is perhaps 

 equally so all over Europe. It is also found in Southern 

 Africa, India, North and South America, and the West Indies, 

 and seems indeed to be nearly cosmopolite. 



The common white owl frequents barns, outhouses, and 

 granaries, in search of those troublesome and destructive in- 

 mates, the rats and mice, on which, and on bats and beetles, it 

 seems principally to feed. In winter they may be found in 

 small parties of five or six in the clefts of old walls, particularly 

 of churches and clock towers, in which, as well as in holes 

 in trees, they build their nests about the month of April in 

 rather a careless manner, in which the female lays two or four 

 round eggs. 



On quitting their perch, these birds seem at first rather to 

 fall over than to fly, until they have gained] their equilibrium 

 after a few seconds. If taken young, they can easily be tamed, 



