BREWSTER : BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 95 



groiip known to occur along the southwestern border of the United States, I 

 have become convinced that the Lower California bird is not likely to have 

 been derived from any of these races. It is, indeed, so very unlike all of them 

 and so similar in general appearance to the Mexican {orm vinaceus that I regard 

 it as most nearly related to, and probably a direct offshoot from, the latter. 

 The two birds, xantusi and vinaceus, with still another Mexican form, M. coopcri, 

 appear to constitute what may be termed a subsection of the M. asio group, for 

 altliough ditferiiig from one another in size they have the same general pattern 

 of color and marking. This pattern is, in certain respects, unlike that common 

 to the various races of M. asio, the principal differences consisting in the exceed- 

 iiiglv fine verraiculation and more or less pronounced pinkish tone of the 

 plumage of all three of the Mexican birds just mentioned. I will further 

 remark in this connection that the form trichojms seems to me to be perfectly 

 distinct, specifically, from M. asio. Indeed, I do not see how it can l)e other- 

 wise regarded, for it differs very strikingly from cinerdceus, the only other 

 representative of asio found in southern Arizona, where, moreover, both 

 trichopsis and cineraceus appear to breed together, or at least in close 

 proximity. 



The sum as well as character of the differences which distinguish M. xantusi 

 from the other members of the genus Megascops would not, in my estimation, war- 

 rant its recognition as a full species were it not for the oljvious and practically 

 complete isolation of its habitat from the regions inhabited by all the others, 

 and especially from the habitat of its nearest ally, M. vinaceus. Were it at all 

 closely related to the California form, hcndirei, we might safely assume that it 

 is likely to meet and intergrade with the latter in the central or northern parts 

 of the Peninsula, but the two are so very unlike that the possibility of such 

 intergradation is not worth considering. 



Very little can be said at present regarding the distribution, and practically 

 nothing concerning the habits, of this pretty little Screech Owl which I liave 

 named for the ornithologist by whonr the first and hitherto only known speci- 

 mens were obtained. Mr. Frazar did not meet with it, but it was, no doubt, 

 the bird whose "tremulous notes " were heard at night by Mr. Belding at sev- 

 eral of his camps in the Victoria Mountains as well as at Agua Caliente and 

 Miraflores, and it may also have been the species with which Mr. Bryant had a 

 similarly unsatisfactory experience " at the drj' camp, Cardon Grande, and at 

 El Rancho Viejo." According to the observer last named, " Mr. Anthony has 

 seen a screech owl on several occasions between Valladares and the coast," but 

 the bird of this region is most likely to be M. a. bendirei, which probably 

 ranges southward into the northern portions of Lower California. 



