( 531 ) 



To recapitulate, we can, I think, recognise : — 



a. Dendrocopus major major : Nortliern Enrope. 



b. An ill defined and not well geographically limited form, or perhaps several 

 forms in Central and Western Enrope. 



c. Dendrocopus major anglicus : Great Britain. Not known to breed itt 

 Ireland. 



d. Small forms in Italy, Corsica and (? the same) Sardinia, which reij^uire 

 attention. They might or might not be separable. 



e. D. m. canariensis : Canary Islands. 

 y. D. m. mauritanus : Morocco. 



g. D. m. numidus : Algiers and Tnnis. 



h. D. m. poelzami : Southern slopes of Caucasus and country immediately south 

 of the Caspian Sea. 



k. D. m. leucopterus : Turkestan and Western Mongolia. 



i. D. m. cissa : Siberia to Russia. 



k. D. m. kamtschaticus : Kamtschatka. 



/. D. m. japonicui : Japan and (?) Kurile Islands. 



m. D. m. syriacus : Asia Minor, Palestine, Western Persia. 



n. D. m. scindeanm : Sindh to the Punjab and Afghanistan ; and perhaps also- 

 D. cabanisi and D. himalayeiisis might be placed in this group. 



V. Strix flammea. 



It is surprising to find that since Dr. Sharpe's work on the Barn Owls {Cat. B. 

 Brit. Mus. vol. II. pp. 291—303) so little attention has been paid to this most 

 fascinating group. Probably from being attracted both by the great beauty of these 

 magnificently coloured birds and by their striking geographical variation I have 

 always been specially interested in the Barn Owls. The fine series already in the 

 Tring Museum, including those of the Brehm collection, gave me some opportunity 

 to study them, and I have already described new subspecies from Curasao, Ecuador 

 and Snmba. One fact has always struck me, that is the constant difference of the 

 English form from that of Germany. Every German ornithologist wonders why 

 Dresser figures (in his " Birds of Enrope," vol. V.) such an " abnormally coloured " 

 bird with white underside ; and recently my friends in the Fatherland were indignant 

 that I gave Mr. Keulemans a similar bird with light underside to be figured in the 

 new edition of Nanmann's " Vcigel Deutschlands." This alone is a clear proof that the 

 English bird difi'ers from the German form— for the birds figured in Dresser's work 

 and in the new edition of Naumann are not at all abnormal, but the typical English 

 ones. Such birds do not occur in Germany, and even the lightest rather rar& 

 varieties from Germany do not equal the commonest British form, which is white 

 without or with few spots below. Under these circumstances it becomes a necessity 

 to give different sabspecific names to the British and Central European forms. 



However, to apply the proper names is not easy. There are some excellent 

 works on Strix, one by C. L. Brehm in Naumannia (1858), one by Ridgway in the 

 " Nortli American Birds," and above all those by Sharpe in Gat. B. Brit. Mus. II. and 

 in the Orn. Misc. vol. I. Brehm's article is one of the best he ever wrote, though 

 he shot far over the mark, as usual, considering individual variations as of specific 

 or subspecific value, and not giving enough consideration and importance to the- 



