126 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



being found from February 20 to March 15. They are 2 or 3 in number, 

 white, subspherical in shape and measure about 2.22 by 1.80 inches. As 

 indicated above, they are commonly laid in a hollow tree on the litter 

 at the bottom, or in an old hawk's nest, and Mr C. F. Stone reports a nest 

 found on the shelf of a precipitous cliff. The nestlings are covered with 

 white down, the fledglings ocherous buff, finely barred with dusky. 



Nyctea nyctea (Linnaeus) 

 Snowy Owl 



Plate 54 



Strix nyctea Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 10. 1758. 1:93 

 Surnia nyctea DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 22, fig. 20 

 Nyctea nyctea. A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 176. No. 376 



nyctea, from vjS, night 



Description. Large, no ear tufts, feet very thickly feathered. White, 

 more or less barred with dusky; face, throat and upper breast without mark- 

 ings; eyes yellow; bill black. Males are much smaller and whiter than 

 females. I have seen a few specimens that were nearly pure white, with 

 only a few inconspicuous dusky spots, but females and young of the year 

 are quite regularly marked with narrow transverse bars below and spotted 

 or brokenly barred above. 



Length 22-25 inches; extent 54-60; wing 16-19; tail 9-10. 



Distribution. The home of the Snowy owl is on the barren grounds 

 of the Holarctic realm. In America it breeds as far south as central Ungava 

 and Keewatin and wanders southward in winter as far as the Middle States, 

 rarely to Carolina and Louisiana. A few specimens are taken in New 

 York nearly every winter, but at intervals of several years there is a decided 

 inva.sion, as in the winters of 1876-77, 1882-83, 1889-90, 1901-2, when 

 dozens of specimens were collected in various parts of the State, notably 

 on Long Island and near the shores of Lake Ontario. My earliest record 

 of arrival is October 20, 1890, a large female captured at Shortsville; and 

 the latest a very white male bird killed at Canandaigua April 11, 1907. 

 The majority of New York records range between November 11 and 

 February 6. 



This species hunts by day nearly as well as in the dusk of evening, 



