GREAT GREY OR CINEREOUS OWL, 
129 
it is able to carry off the alpine hare alive in its tal- 
ons. In Europe, the species appears wholly confined to 
the desert regions of Lapland ; two or three stragglers 
being all that have been obtained out of that country by 
naturalists. Pennant adds, that it constructs its nest in 
a pine tree about the middle of May, with a few sticks, 
and lines it with feathers ; the eggs are 2, and spotted 
with a darkish color. The young take to wing about the 
close of July. 
The male of this species is 2 feet one or two inches in length, in 
alar extent 4, and weighs about 3 pounds. The irids are yellow. 
Bill pale yellow, almost hid in the feathers of the face. From the 
breast to the vent there is said to be a space about an inch in 
breadth bare of feathers (whether this is constant or accidental we 
have yet to learn). Disks of the face dark grey, edged with black, 
and about 9 in number. Feathers round the inner angle of the eye 
and bill black. A whitish space immediately under the chin, border- 
ed below by dusky feathers. Head, hind part of the neck, back, and 
coverts of the wings, brownish sooty black, mottled or curdled with 
dirty white. The primaries dusky, inclining to white on their edges, 
with broad bars, composed of dusky and pale cinereous stripes; each 
pale bar, being bordered on either side with a dusky one. Tail 
wedge-formed, extending nearly 3 inches beyond the points of the 
closed wings, irregularly marked with oblique or zigzag strokes of 
brown and muddy white, and barred in the manner of the wings with 
5 or 6 pale stripes ; the middle feather without bars and covered 
with zigzags. The breast, belly, and rump cinereous white, cover- 
ed with large oblong, partly arrow-shaped, blotches of pale dusky 
brown, becoming narrower and longitudinal towards the vent, The 
legs feathered to the feet, dark cinereous, and without either the 
spots or bars (said to exist in S. lapponica) . Claws black and mod- 
erate. — The female has probably (as described by Bonaparte) the 
face whitish, with black circlets, 
Subgenus. — Ulula, 
The shell of the ear very large, extending semicircular ly from the 
bill to the top of the head, closed with a membranaceous operculum ; 
