SCOPS. 23 
to discover any difference between them. 8. brasilianus therefore occurs with 
S. guatemale, or, as Mr. Ridgway would call it, 8. vermiculatus, in Costa Rica, just as 
it also occurs with S&. roraime in British Guiana, the two birds being apparently quite 
distinct. 
S. brasilianus differs from all other species of Scops in our country, except S. hastatus, 
in having a distinct shade of buff over the middle of the feathers of the under surface. 
The pattern, too, of this portion of the plumage is continuous over the breast down- 
wards, the breast not being darker and more closely marked than the abdomen as 
in S. guatemale. 
The references recording a Scops from the Line of the Panama Railway we have 
placed under S. guatemale, but they may belong to this species. The true 
S. brasilianus occurs in the Cauca Valley, and thence southwards over the greater 
part of Tropical South America. 
8. Scops hastatus. 
Megascops hastatus, Ridgw. Pr. U.S. Nat. Mus. x. p. 268’; Man. N. Am. Birds, ed. 2, p. 593°. 
S. brasiliano similis, sed supra omnino pallidior et grisescentior, maculis nigris precipue in pileo magis obviis : 
subtus fasciis transversis magis numerosis et indistinctioribus. 
Hab. Mexico, Mazatlan (Xantus+), Mineral de San Sebastian in Jalisco (A. C. Buller), 
Tepic (W. B. Richardson). 
Mr. Ridgway separated Scops hastatus from S. brasilianus in 1887 1, his types having 
previously been considered to belong to S. guatemalew. One of these specimens, that 
from Mazatlan (no. 23793), has been kindly forwarded to us, and we find its counterpart 
in a specimen from Mineral de San Sebastian in Jalisco. Another specimen from 
Tepic we think must also be referred to the same form, but it is decidedly darker and 
the black spots, especially on the under surface, wider and more distinct. 
All these specimens have a wash of buff tint on the under surface (slighter in the 
Tepic example) similar to, but not so strong as in, S. brasilianus; the general markings, 
too, of the under surface are nearly uniform and not denser on the breast. Both 
these characters seem to separate S. hastatus from S. guatemala, and we are disposed 
to keep this form from Western Mexico distinct from the more eastern and southern 
bird. At the same time we must admit that the difference is not very pronounced, 
and consists of a modification of colour only, a very variable character in these Owls. 
9. Scops barbarus. 
Scops flammeola, Salv. Ibis, 1861, p. 355 (nec Kaup) *. 
Scops barbarus, Scl. & Salv. P. ZS. 1868, p. 56°; Ex. Orn. p. 101, t. 51°; Sharpe, Cat. Birds 
Brit. Mus. ii. p. 107*; Ridgw. Pr. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1. p. 103 *. 
Megascops barbarus, Hasbrouck, Auk, 1893, p. 262°. 
Niger, pallide rufo punctatus et variegatus, superciliis in torquem nuchalem transeuntibus albo guttatis ; 
scapularium pogoniis externis distincte albo ocellatis, primariis fusco-nigris in pogonio externo rufescenti- 
