OWLS. 341 



locate a nest, what he supposed to be an old nest, as it was heaped high with snow. 

 While looking at it doubtfully, however, his companion struck the butt of the tree a 

 heavy blow Avith a club, and to his surprise the snowy covering of the nest was lifted 

 on the wings of the sitting bird, and scattered in a cloud as she hastily sped away." 



The American horned-owl has a very extensive range, as it is found from the shores 

 of the Arctic sea to Cape Horn, and although it presents considerable variations in 

 size and color, very few forms seem to be constant enough for recognition as races. 

 Specimens have been taken in which the color is so dark as to strongly suggest melan- 

 ism, while the other extreme is seen in specimens from the far north or the Alpine 

 levels of the mountains, which occasionally resemble quite closely, except for the 

 plumicorns, the snowy-owl. 



The dusky horned-owl of India, Bubo coromandus, is interesting from the fact that 

 several instances are on record of its laying distinctly spotted eggs, though ordinarily 

 its eggs, like those of all other owls, are pure, unspotted white. 



Miniatures of the great horned-owls are the little horned-owls, or Scops owls as they 

 are frequently called, from the genus Scops to which they all belong. They agree 

 with the members of the genus E-ubo in most of the characters of that genus except 

 size ; the facial disk being imperfect in the same way and to about the same extent, 

 the plumicorns prominent, and the colors similar. The wings are said to be propor- 

 tionally longer, but this is not very obvious in the best figures we have seen, and even 

 the measurements do not always bear out the statement. The toes, however, are 

 more often bare in Scoj)s than in Bubo, and this nakedness frequently extends some 

 distance up the tarsus, in one or two species even half its length. Moreover, the 

 Scops owls frequently show marked dichromatism, which the species of Bubo never 

 do, and all the former are of small size, the largest not exceeding a foot in length, and 

 the average being only from six to seven inches. 



Mr. R. B. Sharpe, in his catalogue of the birds of prey in the British Museum, thus 

 speaks of this group. " Difficult to understand as all owls are, the species of the 

 genus /Scops are in every way the most difficult to identify. The impossibility of 

 procuring sei'ies of some of the species to stiidy at the same time, the absence of infor- 

 mation as to the sequence of plumages from the young stage to that of the adult, and 

 the puzzling way in which some species seem to possess rufous phases, while others do 

 not, these are all problems which time alone can solve. I can hardly expect that 

 all ornithologists will acquiesce in my views as to the sub-species or races which I have 

 believed it to be my duty to recognize. These races do exist in nature, and they may 

 be called by whatever name naturalists please, 'varieties,' 'races,' 'sub-species,' 'cli- 

 matic forms,' etc. ; but it has seemed to me better to keep these forms, many of which 

 are very well characterized, distinct from one another, than to merge them all as one 

 species, and thus to obliterate all records of natural facts, which are plain enough to 

 the practiced eye of the ornithologist, though difficult to describe in words." 



Mr. Sharpe then proceeds to characterize upwards of twenty-five species, and more 

 than the same number of sub-species or races; about one quarter of the whole being 

 found in America, and the rest in the Old World, excluding Australia and Oceanicn, 

 where none are known to occur. It is, of course, impossible for us to name these here, 

 or to go into questions of the validity of species, the relationships of races, etc. Mr. 

 Sharpe, however, includes in the genus two owls which are perhaps better separated 

 under the generic title Lophostrix, and which in size stand between Bubo and Scops, 

 but rather nearer the former, having a length of from sixteen to twenty inches, and 



