THE OWLS 233 



the rabbits that abound there. Perhaps, too, these sand- 

 dunes have a pleasant resemblance to his real home in the 

 treeless solitudes of the Far North. 



For the Snowy Owl is no forest bird. He belongs to 

 such desolate places as Grinnell Land, Nova Zembla, 

 Franz Josef Land, and the broad belt of dreary solitudes 

 known as the Tundra, which lies between the icy waters 

 of the Arctic seas and the borders of the Siberian pine 

 forests. 



When he visits Britain ^ he may find hares and rabbits 

 and game birds which please him best, but at home his 

 staple food is usually furnished by the countless swarms of 

 lemmings which, like most other animals, move southward 

 at the approach of winter. He follows their marches, 

 feasting royally, and if any place he visits seems a favourite 

 halting-place for the lemming armies, there he stays, and 

 there he and his mate make their nest. One writer tells 

 us that " in Alaska, in a good lemming year, Snowy Owls 

 have been seen dotting the country here and there, as they 

 perched on the scattered knolls." 



When food is scarce this bold marauder becomes 

 positively audacious. Cases have been known in which 

 a sportsman out grouse-shooting has seen the bird he 

 has shot carried off before his eyes by a Snowy Owl that 

 swooped upon it. 



It must be rather a voracious feeder, for Yarrell, the 

 naturalist, records the astonishing fact that one of this 

 species which had been wounded on the island of Balta, in 

 the Shetlands, " disgorged a young rabbit whole ; while 

 another, in my possession," he says, "had in its stomach 

 a young sandpiper with its plumage entire." 



Nor does it disdain a fish diet. Audubon, the American 



1 He has been seen in counties as far south as Dorsetshire. 



