54 BUBONIDJi. 



Total 



length. Wing. Tail. Tarsus, 



in. in. in. in. 



a. Ad. Nepaul (Iloch/son) 75 5-55 2-6 0-95 



b. Ad. Nepaul {Ilodfison) 7"o C 2-7o 1-05 



c. Ad. Nepaul ( Ho(h/so)i) 7-8 58 2-9 1 



Sab, Indian peninsula. 



a,b. Ad. St. Nepaul. B. II. Hodgson, Esq. [P.]. 



c. Ad. sk. Nepaul. B. H. Hodgson, Esq. [P." 



d. Sternum. Nepaul. B. II. Hodgson, Esq. [P. 



Ohs. Mr. Hodgson's drawings show, even if specimens bearing his 

 numbers and original tickets did not exist to prove the fact, that 

 his Scops pennatns embraced two very distinct species, viz. the bird 

 now named by every one S. pennatus and the species afterwards 

 called ;S'. spilocephalus by Blyth. S. pennatus is therefore a com- 

 posite species, the type of which would be difficult to determine ; but 

 as Blyth has separated the spotted bird it remains to allot to the 

 grey Scops Owl of the Himalayas the title oi pennatus. By its dark 

 coloration the Indian bird approaches S. capensis, but differs from it 

 and from S. giu by the possession of a very distinct rufous phase 

 (not, however, to be confounded with S. sunia). Mr. Hume has 

 kindly lent me the rufous bird figured by him in his new work on 

 the Ornithology of India ; and I think that every one will admit that 

 such a rufous bird was never seen in Europe. 



Subsp. y. Scops stictonotus. (Plate III. fig. 2.) 



Scops bakkamfena, Su-iiih. Ibis, 1860, p. 47. 



Scops japonicus, Swhih. Ibis, 1863, p. 89; David, K. Arch. Mus. 



Bull. p. 4. 

 Scops sunia, Sirinh. P. Z. S. 1871, p. 343 ; id. Ibis, 1874, p. 433. 



Adult. General colour above ashj^ brown, mottled with numerous 

 blackish cross-vermiculations, the whole of the upper surface varied 

 with central spots or cross bars of pale yellowish buff, much broader 

 on the hinder neck, and forming there a tolerably distinct collar ; 

 some of the feathers of the head blackish in the centre, and nearly 

 all of them spotted with pale buff, most of the shafts being of the 

 latter colour ; ear-tufts (0-85 inch long) marked and spotted like 

 the crown, the bases to the feathers pale yellowish buff, extending 

 for the greater part of the inner web ; scapulars as distinctly barred 

 with yellowish buff as the hind neck, the outer webs of external 

 ones white, with a distinct terminal bar of blackish brown, some of 

 the feathers slightly tinged with yellowish buff; wing-coverts rather 

 more rufous than the back and distinctly spotted with tawny buff, 

 the median and greater series slightly washed with grey and less 

 thickly vermiculated with brown, the median series distinctly barred 

 with whitish, large spots of which are apparent at the tips of the 

 outer median and greater coverts, the spurious quills externally 

 notched with white ; primary coverts brown, vermiculated with, 

 sandy buff, and distinctly barred across with the same colour, so as 



