132 Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
He says (tinder date Dec. 3rd):—“ Since September, and 
before I reached home from Europe, we have been having a 
most wonderful flight of Snowy Owls (Nyctea nivea ). How 
far west it has extended I have not yet heard; but from New 
Brunswick on the east to western New York State the whole 
tract has been covered by the extraordinary prevalence of 
these Owls. 
‘ They come not single spies but in battalions ! ’ 
Mr. Boardman, writing to me from St. Stephen's, New Bruns¬ 
wick, says, f We have had a wonderful flight of Snowy Owls. 
They were in flocks of fifteens and twenties moving southwards. 
I never before heard of so many. Most of those seen along 
the coast seemed to be following the migratory birds. Some 
were here early in September and in very mild weather. They 
were easily captured/ The same peculiarities were observed 
here. The Owls swarmed everywhere, and were obtained in 
large numbers, so that our taxidermists could not prepare all 
that were brought to them. At Hingham, on the coast, 
quite a number were killed and brought to my nephew. In 
Utica, New York, one was ignominiously knocked on the 
head by an old woman with a broomstick, the bird having 
been caught robbing her hen-roost.” 
The same phenomenon, we may add, has also manifested 
itself in the eastern hemisphere. Three examples of the 
Snowy Owl, one of which was captured in Ireland, are now 
in the Zoological Society's Gardens. Mr. Cross, the well- 
known dealer at Liverpool, says he never had so many of this 
bird. Every steamer from America brings in two or three, 
so that at one time he had nearly thirty in his possession. 
