265 



blind, after some fragments of my lunch, 



and, being unable to climb up the sheer sand 



walls, had started to tunnel up to the surface. Snooty Visitors 



The owl heard him at work, and started a 



stern chase. He won, too, for right in the 



midst of a fury of seaweed he shot up with 



the rat in his claws. Had it not been for the 



storm and his underground digging, he surely 



would have detected me long before I could 



get near enough to see what he was doing; 



for his eyes and ears are wonderfully keen. 



In his southern visits, or perhaps on the 

 ice fields of the Arctic ocean, he has discov- 

 ered a more novel way of procuring his food 

 than digging for it. He has turned fisher- 

 man and learned to fish. Once only have I 

 seen him get his dinner in this way. It was 

 on the north shore of Nantucket, one day in 

 the winter of 1890-91, when the remarkable 

 flight of white owls came down from the 

 North. The bay was full of floating ice, and 

 swirnming about the shoals were thousands 

 of coots. While watching the latter through 

 my field glass, I noticed a snowy owl stand- 

 ing up still and straight on the edge of a big 



