THE WHITE OWL 
Caprimulgide in the large collection of birds at the 
Zoo; and that will doubtless be a Podargus. 
THE SNOWY OWL 
It is true that visitors to the Zoological Gardens are 
not so much in search of British animals as of unfamiliar 
exotics ; but the snowy owl (Nyctea nivea) may be fairly 
taken as an example of the owl tribe, though it does 
occasionally creep, intrude, or climb into the fold of 
British birds. It cannot, however, be really considered 
to be a British bird in the full sense of the adjective, 
inasmuch as it is at most a rare straggler. As its 
plumage really tells us, the snowy owl is a fowl of cir- 
cumpolar range, though some ornithologists have 
differentiated an American from an European form. 
These birds prefer the desolate and snowy tracts of the 
extreme north, and “ there,” as Isaiah said, ‘‘ shall the 
great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather 
under her shadow.” The late Dr. Stanley, in his. 
well-known book upon birds, even went so far as to say 
that the snowy owl, when surprised in more temperate 
latitudes, as it has been on more than one occasion, 
hopped from snowy patch to snowy patch, and avoided 
the snowless intervals, where it would be more con- 
spicuous. The bird is, in fact, one of those polar crea- 
tures, like the white bear, which appear to be coloured 
in relation to their normal surroundings, and in which 
this white colour is borne winter and summer alike. 
Nyctea, however, is not wholly white, but spotted with 
black. This owl is typically owl-like in its form; in- 
deed, the group of Strigide is one which is sharply 
marked off from other birds; there is never any doubt 
whatever about a given bird as to whether it is or is not 
an owl. It is also one of the largest of owls, and dispels 
in its own person a common belief about owls, ie. that 
they are not only nocturnal, but cannot bear to look upon 
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