NOTES ON BIRDS IN CONFINEMENT. 
Nyctea nyctea. 
Aurora. She instantly pounced on it, and, holding it with 
both feet, crunched its skull in her powerful beak, but a 
moment later she left it and absolutely refused to touch it 
cigain, probably because it had been dead several weeks and 
was a trifle gamey. 
warch 15 .--- The Owls restless and apparently very hungry, 
Boreas squealing a good deal through the day. About sunset 
I threw the heads an.i necks of three canvas -back Ducks in- 
to the compartment. Aurora at once seized one and Boreas 
another, each retreating to a corner with its plunder and be- 
ginning to tear and crunch. Aurora, hearing Boreas thus en- 
gaged, lef r her own fragment, and, flying across the cage, 
pounced upon the Duck' s neck that Boreas was eating and 
took it back to her own corner, dragging the bewildered Bo- 
reas half-way across the floor before he would let go. He 
submitted to this outrage meekly. To console him I gave 
him the third head, but in less than a minute Aurora had this 
also, collecting all three heads in one pile, set to work on 
them energetically. Boreas made no attempts to recover any 
of them, but stood aloof, every now and then giving vent to 
his feelings by s succession of shrill squeals. It is evi- 
dent that he must have had another compat with Aurora and 
been worsted. 
Besides the squeal, which I have thus far heard 
only from Boreas, these Owls utter occasionally , usually when 
flying, a rapid succession of rather musical squeaks the com- 
bined series resembling slightly the vocal twitter* of the 
Woodcock. Boreas has also once given in my hearing a low 
gasping cry. They continue to "spit" when I approach them 
clo sely . 
Narch _I7 . Last night at ten o’clock I went down to 
see the Owls. Boreas in his usual corner wearing a hungry 
het cowed expression. Aurora in the foreground close to ° the 
wire netting sitti ng on the cellar floor precisely as a hen 
sits when covering a brood of chickens, the plumage puffed 
out but the body flattened on the ground. She looked moody 
and dangerous. As I had never seen her in quite this 
