78 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



mau}- as ten. They are large, slightly oval, rather rough in grain, and are pure 

 white, measuring from 2*44 to 2'i inches by from i'84 to i"68 inches. The}' are 

 laid at irregular intervals and, as in the case of some other Owls, the first hatched 

 Owlets assist in incubating the later eggs. 



The Snow}' Owl only migrates a little to the south in winter from its Arctic 

 home in search of food, following the migrations of its pre}- ; some remain in the 

 frozen north throughout the year. Its note is said to resemble a loud krau-an 

 repeated several times in quick succession, or sometimes it utters a loud rick-rick- 

 rick as it rises startled from its perch. 



It is difficult to imagine how the Snowy Owl can find subsistence during the 

 long polar winter if it does not leave the frozen tundras where the rivers are all 

 iron bound with ice, and no fish can be obtained ; where the vast dreary plains 

 are covered many feet deep with snow, at the bottom of which the small rodents 

 are either engaged in eating the roots of the grasses, or are wrapped in their 

 winter's sleep ; when all the wild-fowl have departed, having fled southwards on 

 the first signs of the dread winter. Very different is it during the continued day 

 of the brief Arctic summer, when the sun never dips below the horizon, all the 

 rivers are free, and the surface of the tundras, directly the snows are melted, 

 become clothed with a sudden vegetation ; then the great flocks of ducks, geese, 

 plovers, sand-pipers, and numerous small birds have all returned to their breeding 

 quarters, and the Sno\\^ Owl lays its eggs and rears its young with an abundant 

 food supply close at hand. 



Among the phenomena of animal life in the far north are the periodical 

 migrations of the lemmings ; these tiny mouse-like creatures are seized from time 

 to time with a mysterious impulse, and collecting in vast hordes start on their 

 journey. Crossing rivers the flsh take their toll of them as they swim over; 

 nothing proves an obstacle to their advance, except the ocean, and fortunate is it 

 their line of march does not pass through a cultivated country, or great would be 

 the devastation wrought. Animals and birds of all kinds hasten to the feast, even 

 the reindeer is said to eat them ; the Snowy Owls flocking after them are in this 

 manner brought into districts where they are not usually seen, to disappear again 

 with the attraction that has allured them. 



Wheelwright states that in Lapland the nest of the Snowy Owl was nothing 

 more than a large ball of reindeer moss, placed on the ledge of a bare fell, and 

 was jealously guarded by the old birds ; he adds that the Laps often kill them 

 with a stick when they are robbing the nest. Sometimes the nest is placed on 

 tlie large turf hillocks in some of the mosses. Wheelwright considered the Snowy 

 Owl more local than erratic, although, in some years there would appear to be a 



