172 BULLETIN 186, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



varying from pure white to buff and more or less densely marked 

 with blackish-brown dots. 



I have not seen topotypical stertens, but all Thai specimens examined 

 (Bangkok, Pak Chong, Chiang Mai) differ from a Javanese bird 

 exactly as stertms is said by Hartert to do. 



PHODILUS BADIUS BADIUS (Horsfield) 



Javanese Bay Owl 



Strix badia Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. 13, 1821, p. 139 (Java). 

 Photodilus Radius, Gyldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 1916, p. 



122 (Khun Tan) ; Ibis, 1920, p. 754 (Khun Tan). 

 Phodilus Radius saturates, Greenway, Bull. Mus. Coinp. Zool., 1940, p. 194 (Doi 



Nang Kaeo). 



This beautiful owl seems to be very rare in Thailand, and the only 

 northern specimens known to me are a female collected by Gylden- 

 stolpe "in a dense valley among the Koon Tan mountains," September 

 17, 1914, and the male recorded by Greenway from Doi Nang Kaeo, 

 2,800 feet, April 12, 1937. 



Gyldenstolpe notes that his bird had the irides blackish brown; 

 the bill and toes pale gray. 



The bay owl has the forehead, anterior portion of the crown, and 

 the facial disk light vinaceous-pink ; the upper parts rich chestnut, 

 more or less marked with black and white dots, and with an ill-defined 

 nuchal collar, the greater part of the scapulars, and some of the wing 

 coverts golden -buff; the quills of wings and tail barred with black; 

 the underparts light vinaceous-pink, more or less marked with black 

 or blackish-chestnut dots, each feather with a golden-buff base, which 

 shows through in places, especially on the breast and sides. 



The specimen in Stockholm is intermediate in size (wing length: 

 215 mm.) between badius of Java and saturatus of Native Sikkim, but 

 since it agrees perfectly with a Sumatran example in the coloration 

 of the upperparts and is only very slightly paler below, I place it 

 with the nominate race. The wing length of Greenway's skin, which 

 I have not examined, measures 210 mm. 



It will perhaps eventually be found advisable to employ a special 

 name for the intermediate birds of Thailand, Burma, and Assam, but 

 whether Oberholser's name abbotti, based upon a single unsexed spec- 

 imen from so far south as the Province Wellesley, can be used for 

 more northern examples, as has been done by Riley (1938), is open 

 to question. The problem can be elucidated only by access to cor- 

 rectly sexed specimens from critical localities and by comparing 

 measurements of skins of the same sex. The wing lengths published 

 by Robinson (Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 47, 1927, p. 122) might have 

 cast light upon it but have been rendered virtually useless by his com- 

 plete failure to indicate the sexes of skins measured. 



