68 NORTH AMERICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



1856 I received from Robert Kinnicott, Esq., of Cook County, Illinois, an Owl's 

 egg found by a boy on the ground, in a prairie. It was sent to me as probably an 

 egg of the Short-eared Owl, but from its close resemblance to all the eggs of the 

 Otus wilsonianus I have ever seen, and its dissimilarity from those of the Brachyotus 

 cassinii, I have no doubt that it was an egg of the former. 



As this species is variously spoken of as breeding in April and in July, it proba- 

 bly raises more than one brood in a season. The eggs are usually four in number, 

 are nearly round, and of a uniform dull-white color. One from New Jersey, 

 obtained by Mr. Alexander Wilson, measures 1 T ^ inches in length, by 1 T ^ in 

 breadth. 



BRACHYOTUS CASSINII. 



Strix brachyotus, FORSTER, Philos. Trans. London, 1772, LXII, 384. 

 " WILSON, Am. Orn. IV, 1812, 64, pi. xxxiii, fig, 3. 



BONAP. Syn. 1828, p. 37. 

 " RICH. & SWAINS. F. B. A. II, 1831, 75. 

 " NUTTALL, Manual, I, 1832, 132. 

 " AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1835, 373, pi. 432. 



Brachyotus jmlustris (americanus), BONAP. Geog. and Comp. List, 1838, p. 7. 



" " " " Cons. Av. p. 51. 



Otus Irachyotus, AUD. Syn. 1839, p. 28. 

 " " " Birds of Am. I, 1840, 140, pi. xxxviii. 



" CASSIN, Syn. N. A. Birds (Illust. Birds of Cal.), 1854, p. 182. 



Brachyotus cassinii, BREWER, Proceedings Boston Nat. Hist. Soc., Feb. 1856. 



VULG. Short-eared Owl. American Short-eared Owl. CassMs Short-eared Owl. 



So long as the Short-eared Owl of North America was supposed to be identical 

 with the Brachyotus palustris of Europe, and its representative variety in South 

 America, it was permitted to lay claim to the widest geographical range of any bird 

 known to us. With this supposition of its identity, we should have to assign to 

 it, as its habitat, a very large portion of the globe, embracing the whole American 

 continent, from its most northern point inclusive of Greenland to some 

 of the most extreme southwestern portions of South America, together with all 

 the northern and temperate portions of the Eastern continent. The grave doubts 

 which have long existed as to its right to this claim of identity with either the Eu- 

 ropean or the South American bird may now be regarded as having become certain- 

 ties, and our American species must be received as separate and distinct, though 

 closely allied. From the European it is certainly quite different. From the South 

 American it diifers in a less degree, yet still presents certain constant deviations, 

 hardly less than specific. 



The Short-eared Owl of our Southern continent has been obtained as far to the 



