78 Dr. Hunt on the Taco7iic System of Emmons. 



four in number, in the neighbourhood of Racine in that State. I 

 am happy to have had it in my power to add it to the list of Owls. 



v.s.p. Bill black and nearly concealed by small feathers and 

 black bristles arising from its base. Irides yellow. Above eyes 

 and on each side of bill a dirty white line ; remainder of the front 

 composed of chocolate brown feathers edged with dirty white, 

 their tips causing at the edge of the front a dirty white line. Fea- 

 thers behind eyes darkest. Tarsi feathered to extremities ot toes 

 with fine appressed ochrey colored feathers. Toes and claws long. 



Dorsal aspect. Prevailing tint chocolate brown, relieved on 

 the scapulars, secondaries and primaries by whitish spots, on the 

 latter the spots existing on both the outer and inner veins, form- 

 ing 3 or 4 imperfect bars. Tail with three bars of white and 

 faintly tipped with the same color. 



Ventral aspect. Chin and throat chocolate brown changing on 

 the abdomen, flanks, and inferior tail coverts, to an oohry color. 

 Under wing coverts whitish. 



3rd primary longest, 2 and 4 subequal, 1 and 1 being about 

 equal. Wings rounded when expanded. Length from crown of 

 head to tip of tail 7^ inches. Alar expance 15 inches. The 

 whole plumage is peculiarly velvety to the feel. 

 (To be continued.) 



ARTICLE V. — Note on the Taconic System of Emmons; by 

 T. Sterry Hunt, M.A., F.R.S. 



In a notice of the Taconic rocks in the last volume of this 

 Journal, (p. 379,) it was explained that Emmons asserts that in 

 going eastward from the line of fault which brings up the Taconic 

 group to overlie the Trenton and Loraine formations, we meet suc- 

 cessively with lower rocks, all dipping eastward, until in the Green 

 Mountain gneiss we have a rock which is older than the Taconic 

 group ; so that the newest rocks appear to be at the base, and 

 the oldest at the summit of the series. It was however main- 

 tained, in opposition to this view, that the apparent order of super- 

 position from the great fault, going eastward to the Green Moun- 

 tains is in the main, the true one, and that the black slates of Em- 

 mons, which he regards as the newest rock of his series, are really 

 the oldest; while the Green Mountain gneiss is a rock higher in 

 the series than any of those to the west of it. 



These propositions we still maintain, but in explaining what 

 we conceive to be Mr. Emmons' error, we have said that in order 

 to explain this supposed inversion in the succession of the rocks, he 



