Snow Owl

While lunching upon the banks of the Androscoggin River, Maine, one of these majestic ghosts glided low over the water toward me. Scarcely pausing in flight he swiftly extended one leg, gave it a quick backward sweep and hooked a trout with the two front claws. The leg bent, throwing in the rear pincers. — A neat method, quite different from the Fish Hawk's clumsy dive. (Nyctea is an artistic fisherman, the Fish Hawk a determined craftsman). They appear at intervals in Winter over a large part of the United States probably because their food supply fails in the far north where they usually remain. They find not food alone but death in their migrations, for the picturesque bird seems to inspire all who see it with lethal ambition.

Crows are persistent baiters and I have seen them among the Winter sand dunes, swerving and feinting at the motionless figure. They learn that the SNOW OWL can see in the daylight and this lesson is driven home by the death of one or more tormentors.

They nest on the ground in the far north and lay an unusually large number of eggs for an Owl — 5 to 7. They destroy a quantity of mice and are extremely fond of the common rat.