SNOWY
SNOWY OWL.
NYCTEA SCANDIACA (Linn.).
Strix scanrliaca, Linn. S. N. i. p. 132 (1766).
Strix nyctea, Naum. i. p. 417.
Syrnia nyctea, Macg. iii. p. 407.
Surnia nyctea, Hewitson, i. p. 64.
Nyctea scandiaca, Yarr. ed. 4, i. p. 187; Dresser, v. p. 287.
Surnie Harfang, French; Schnee-Eule, German.
This fine Owl, whose true home is in the extreme
north of the Old and New Worlds, is an occasional
straggler to the British Islands, and fide Mr. Robert
Gray, as quoted in the 4th edition of ‘ Yarrell,’ may be
regarded as an almost regular spring visitant in the
Outer Hebrides. I have never had the good fortune to
meet with the Snowy Owl in a wild state, so that I can
add nothing to the details already published concerning
its habits and haunts in that condition, but I may
mention that it is a bird of the open country, that it
can see to hunt in the brightest sunlight as well as in
the gloom of night, that it follows the migrations of the
lemmings, and consequently is occasionally abundant in
districts where perhaps it may previously have been
barely known. Its food consists of hares and smaller