4]8 SYRNIA PSILODACTYLA. 



curved, with a sinus on each side close to the abruptly round- 

 ed tip. The cere is rather short, and bare above ; the nostrils 

 roundish, each in the fore part of a remarkable bulge. The 

 conch is of an elliptical form, five twelfths of an inch long, 

 simple, and fringed. The tarsi are moderately stout, and co- 

 vered with downy feathers ; but the toes with adpressed bris- 

 tles, allowing the obscurely defined transverse series of scales 

 to be seen, each moreover having two terminal scutella. The 

 claws are long, stout, tapering, very acute, and little curved ; 

 the first and fourth smaller and rounded beneath, the second 

 flattened but narrow, the third with a thin inner edge. 



The facial disk is incomplete, the feathers over the eye being 

 of the ordinaiy kind, and even its lower part not entirely radi- 

 ant, for its posterior portion has much of the usual texture of 

 ear-coverts. The bristle-tipped plumelets at the base of the 

 bill are long. The ruif is very inconspicuous and incomplete, 

 the feathers being merely a little more curved than the rest. 

 The plumage is very soft, on the lower parts downy, the fea- 

 thers generally ovato-oblong. The wings are long and round- 

 ed ; the outer four sinuate on the inner web, and narrowed on 

 the outer, the first with the tips of the filaments slightly re- 

 curved, the third longest, the fourth scarcely shorter, the se- 

 cond a little longer than the fifth, the first shorter than the 

 sixth. The tail is short, nearly even, somewhat arched, and 

 rather narrow. 



The bill is greyish-yellow, somewhat dusky toward the base ; 

 the claws yellowish-brown, with the tips dusky. The general 

 colour of the upper parts is umber-brown, tinged with grey. 

 On the upper part of the head are numerous linear-oblong 

 white spots, there being one along the middle of each feather ; 

 on the hind-neck the spots are large and roundish or irregular ; 

 on the back and scapulars most of the feathers have two round- 

 ish spots ; the wing coverts one. All the quills have marginal 

 whitish spots, those on the outer webs being triangular, on the 

 inner transversely oblong. The tail is marked with four bands 

 of narrow transverse spots. The anterior feathers of the disk 

 are whitish, with dusky shafts, the lower whitish, barred and 

 tipped with greyish-brown, the posterior brown tipped with 



