THE SNOWY OWL. 99 



from a nest in the vicinity of the Moravian settlement, on the 

 coast of Labrador. He had commissioned a person to procure 

 for him there, living specimens of the gyr falcon, for which the 

 owls were mistaken. In the preceding year, peregrine falcons 

 were brought to him thence by mistake for gyr falcons. The 

 white colour of the owls, however, led the person commissioned 

 to procure the hawks, to believe that he had at last obtained the 

 wished-for objects. These nestlings were at the time covered 

 only with down, and were so young that it was at first feared they 

 would not survive until the arrival of the vessel in London. Due 

 care was, however, taken of them, upwards of 700 mice, procured 

 by an Esquimaux for the occasion, were stowed in the vessel for 

 their support; when these were consumed, reindeers' flesh was 

 given them ; and when the vessel came near soundings, they were 

 supplied with sea-gulls caught upon baited hooks. An examina- 

 tion of these individuals has enabled me to correct an error which 

 appears in some of the best ornithological works respecting the 

 plumage of the snowy owl in the first year. This error seems, 

 in part at least, to have originated with Bullock, who states (but 

 not from personal observation), that the young birds which are 

 seen in the Shetland Islands flying about with their parents, are 

 brown at the end of summer. Temminck also remarks, that 

 " les jeunes, au sortir du nid, sont couverts d'un duvet brim ; les 

 premieres plumes sont aussi d'un brun clair."* Audubon ob- 

 serves, " I have shot specimens, which were, as I thought, so 

 young as to be nearly of a uniform light-brown tint, and which 

 puzzled me for several years, as I had at first conceived them to 

 be of a different species/'f On arrival, when they were in good 

 condition, the birds under consideration were as follows : — 



One, much smaller than the others, and presumed to be a male, was considerably 

 whiter than the specimen shot in a wild state, whose plumage has just been described, 

 but displayed two markings which the other does not possess ; the back of the head, 

 where it joins the body, being blackish-brown, and another patch of this colour appear- 



* Man. Orn. torn. i. p. 82. 

 f Orn. Biog. vol. ii. p. 136 ; where a highly interesting account of the snowy 

 owl's mode of fishing, as witnessed by the author at the Falls of the Ohio, will be 

 found. 



