SNOWY OWL. 



NYCTEA SCANDIACA (Linn.). 



Strix scandiaca, Linn. S. N. i. p. 132 (1766). 

 Strix nyctea, Nauru, i. p. 417. 

 Syrnia nyctea, Macg. iii. p. 407. 

 Surnia nyctea, Hewitson, i. p. 64. 



Nyctea scandiaca, Yarr. ed. 4, i. p. 187 ; Dresser, v. p. 287. 

 Surnie Harfang, French; Schnee-Eule, German. 



This fine Owl, whose true home is in the extreme 

 north of the Old and New Worlds, is an occasional 

 straggler to the British Islands, and fde Mr. Robert 

 Gray, as quoted in the 4th edition of ' Yarrell/ may be 

 regarded as an almost regular spring visitant in the 

 Outer Hebrides. I have never had the good fortune to 

 meet with the Snowy Owl in a wild state, so that I can 

 add nothing to the details already published concerning 

 its habits and haunts in that condition, but I may 

 mention that it is a bird of the open country, that it 

 can see to hunt in the brightest sunlight as well as in 

 the gloom of night, that it follows the migrations of the 

 lemmings, and consequently is occasionally abundant in 

 districts where perhaps it may previously have been 

 barely known. Its food consists of hares and smaller 



