SNOWY OWL. 
307 
observed to leave its retreat, it is frequently as- 
sailed by crows and other birds; but it receives 
their attacks rather as an amusement than an 
annoyance, and dashes through the air, despising 
their hostility. 
It preys chiefly on sandpipers, on which it 
pounces with precision and agility as it skims 
along the marshes. The specimen given to Mr 
Bullock’s museum had an entire one in its stomach 
when I shot it, and a mouse perfectly whole was 
taken from that of the present specimen.* 
Dr Neil has kindly furnished us with the notes 
which he kept of the habits of the specimen 
alluded to at page 304. This bird continued for 
a year and a half in his possession vigorous and 
healthy. 
*• In the beginning of May, 1835, 1 received, at 
Canonmills Cottage, a live specimen of the Snowy 
Owl ( Syrnia nyctea .) It came in a sort of crib 
by a trading vessel from Orkney, and arrived in 
tolerably good plight. A letter from Robert 
Scarth, Esq. of Skae in Sanda, informed me, that 
‘ about the middle of the preceding month of 
April, a very heavy north-wester had set in, with 
showers of hail and cold sleet. A large bevy of 
rooks, snow-flakes, swans, golden-eye ducks, and 
other northern strangers, were driven by this storm 
* Trans. Wem. Society, Vol. IV. i. p. 158. 
