THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 171 



darker and black at the base; the mandible fleshy; the feet and toes 

 slaty ; the soles gray ; the claws horny black. The adult is said to have 

 the irides red ; the bill, feet, and toes black. 



The full-plumaged adult will seldom be observed in our provinces; 

 it is best described as a much smaller replica of adult intermedins. 

 Most of our birds wear an immature dress, in which they have the 

 upperparts red-brown, the feathers of head and back with conspicuous 

 buffy- white shaft streaks; the tail dull, dark brown, glossed with 

 greenish; the underparts buff, the feathers with paler shaft streaks; 

 the flanks and under tail coverts darker and barred with blackish. 



Order STRIGIFORJMES 

 Family TYTONIDAE 



TYTO ALBA STERTENS Hartert 



Indian Barn Owl 



Tyto alba stertens Hartert, Nov. Zool., vol. 35, 1929, p. 98 (Silchar, Cachar). 

 Tyto alba javanica, Deignan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 1931, p. 163 



(Chiang Mai) ; 1936, p. 89 (Chiang Mai).— de Schauensee, Proc. Acad. Nat. 



Sci. Philadelphia, 1934, p. 267 (Chiang Mai). 



The barn owl is common in the city of Chiang Mai and its environs 

 but is not yet known from any other locality in our provinces, although 

 it may be expected to occur at least in the larger towns. 



At Chiang Mai this owl was sometimes observed hiding in the crown 

 of a coconut palm, but normally it concealed itself from the sun in 

 some ruined pagoda. At nightfall it was often seen slowly flapping 

 over the river or above such open places as the golf course and the 

 parade ground. Its call, frequently uttered on the wing, has been 

 described as a screech or scream but to my ears it more nearly resembles 

 the sound made in tearing a piece of cloth ; by the more superstitious of 

 the townsfolk it is held to be an omen of death. Most of my specimens 

 had the stomach empty, but one had been feeding upon small rodents. 



An example of November 19, 1935, contained an oviduct egg ; this is 

 the only case known to me of any northern bird breeding in that month. 



A female had the irides dark brown ; the cere fleshy pink ; the bill 

 fleshy white; the interior of the mouth pink; the feet and toes gray- 

 brown, the latter tipped dark brown ; the bare patch behind the "knee" 

 fleshy ; the claws dark horn-brown. 



This is a rather large owl which, in life, seems to be mostly white. 

 It has a heart-shaped facial disk, which is white and outlined with 

 yellowish brown; the upperparts mixed brownish gray and yellowish 

 brown with many small whitish spots outlined with blackish brown; 

 the tail yellowish brown, barred with blackish brown ; the underparts 



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