PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



by the 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 85 Washington : 1938 No. 3031 



ANOTHER FOSSIL OWL FROM THE EOCENE OF 

 WYOMING 



By Alexander Wetmore 



During the field season of 1931, M. V. Walker, working under 

 C. W. Gilmore, curator of vertebrate paleontology in the United 

 States National Museum, collected a few fragmentary fossil bird 

 bones in a Wasatch exposure near Worland, Wyo. This material, 

 whicli has recently come to attention during the laboratory prepa- 

 ration of the final specimens from this field season, contains an 

 undescribed species of the family Protostrigidae that may be 

 known as 



PROTOSTRIX MEMICA, new species 



Characters. — Distal end of tibiotarsus (fig. 4) similar to that of 

 Protostrix leptosteus (Marsh) ^ but decidedly smaller; outer condyle 

 heavier. 



Type. — U.S.N.M. no. 15156, distal end of right tibiotarsus, col- 

 lected July 23, 1931, on the south side of Ten Mile Creek, 12 miles 

 northwest of Worland, Wyo., by M. V. Walker, from the Wasatch 

 formation of the Eocene. 



Description. — External condyle reniform in outline (somewhat dis- 

 torted by pressure), its external face concave, projecting well beyond 

 the line of the shaft both in front and in back; internal condyle 

 viewed in outline distinctly flattened, projecting considerably for- 

 ward beyond the line of the shaft and to a less degree behind, the 

 external face concave, viewed from the distal end, broad and flat- 

 tened; intercondylar sulcus broadly open, U-shaped in outline; shaft 



'^ BuTiO leptosteus Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 2, 1S71, p. 126 (Bridger Eocene). 

 27425—37 27 



