BIEDS OP NOETH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 667 



[Asio acdpitrinus.] /?. Asio cassini Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., ii, 1875, 238 



(numerous North and South American localities cited). 

 Brachyotus palustris, ^. cassini Ridgway, Orn. Fortieth Parallel, 1877, 571 (San 



Francisco, California, Feb.). 

 Asio acdpitrinus cassini ScKXLOw, Sitz.-Ber. Naturf. Freunde Berlin, 1897, no. 5, 



70 (Mas-a-tierra, Chile); Zool. Jahrb., Suppl. iv, heft 3, 1898, 698 (e.Tierra 



del Fuego), 743 (Juan Fernandez; important references). 

 Ni/ctalops acdpitrinus cassini Dabbene, Orn. Argentina, July 16, 1910, 417 (centr. 



Patagonia). 

 Asio acdpitrinus mdlhennyi Stone, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1899 (separates 



issued Dec. 29, 1899), 478 (Point Barrow, Alaska; coll. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila.); 



1900, 28 (Point Barrow).— Allen, Auk, xviii, 1901, 174 (reprint of original 



descr.). 

 Asio acdpitrinus pallidum Sarudny and Loudon, Orn. Monatsb., 1906, 151 



(central Asia). — Schalow, Journ. fiir Orn., 1908, 108. 

 Sumia funerea (not 8trix funerea Linnseus) Cooke, Auk, ii, 1885, 31 (Corinth, 



Mississippi). 

 Sumia ulula caparoch (not Strix caparoch Miiller) Shufeldt, Auk, vii, 1890, 91 



(District Columbia). 

 Brachyotus gmelinii Malm, Goteb. och Bohusl. Fauna, 1877, 75. 



ASIO PORTORICENSIS Ridgway. 



PORTO RICAN SHORT-EARED OWL. 



Similar to A. flammeus but decidedly smaller, with larger biU and 

 feet; back, scapulars, and rump with dark brown greatly predomi- 

 nating (almost uniform), and ochraceous or light tawny spaces on 

 distal primaries much smaller, little, if any, exceeding the brown 

 interspaces in extent. 



Adults {sexes alike). — Above dusky brown (bister), this nearly 

 uniform on dorsal region, the scapulars, however, with narrow edg- 

 ings of duU light brownish buflfy; rump and upper tail-coverts paler 

 brown or fawn color, the feathers with subterminal crescentic bars 

 of dark brown; hindneck broadly streaked with buffy, the brown 

 forming broad (partly guttate) stripes, the pileum narrowly streaked 

 with the same; tail sharply banded with ochraceous-buff and plain 

 dark brown, the brown bands narrow on outermost rectrices (one-half, 

 or less, as wide as the buff interspaces) growing gradually broader 

 toward the middle pair on which the buff is sometimes reduced to 

 spots, usually with a small central blotch of brown; wings with dark 

 brown predominating, but this much broken by large roundish and 

 transversely oval spots of buff or cinnamon-buff on wing-coverts, 

 and by more quadrate spots (running in transverse series) on remiges, 

 those on proximal portion of distal primaries little, if any larger than 

 the brown interspaces; orbital region uniform sooty black or dark 

 sooty brown, this narrower in front of eye; ''eyebrows" and lores 

 duU light brownish buff, or dull buffy whitish, the latter with bristly 

 tips blackish; a crescentic band of duU buff extending across posterior 

 portion of auricular region, from base of ear-tufts to tlu-oat, where 



