S8 ALLEN'S naturalist's LIBRARY. 



brow, as well as the sides of the face, white ; the ear-coverts 

 tipped with black, and forming a crescentic line down the 

 hinder margin of the latter ; throat white, separated from the 

 chest, which is also white, by a band of dusky-brown feathers ; 

 remainder of under surface white, narrowly banded with brown, 

 the bars less distinct on the lower abdomen, but again pro- 

 nounced on the under tail-coverts ; bill light yellow ; claws 

 blackish-brown; iris bright yellow. Total length, 14 inches; 

 wing, 9*7 ; tail, 7*5 ; tarsus, about I'o. 



Young Birds. — Resemble the adults, but are more dingy-brown 

 in colour, and do not show the white spots on the scapulars 

 and wing-coverts so distinctly ; the white on the throat and 

 fore-neck is also less distinctly indicated. 



The Hawk-Owl is easily recognised from the other British 

 species of Owl by its long and wedge-shaped tail, and by its 

 regularly banded under surface. 



Range in Great Britain. — Although some half-a-dozen specimens 

 of Hawk-Owls have been obtained in Great Britain, it would 

 seem that the European species comes but seldom, and it is the 

 American species which principally visits us. Such British 

 specimens as have been examined by competent judges have 

 proved to be Surnia fimerea and not S. uhda^ but of the latter 

 I exhibited a specimen before the Zoological Society in 1876, 

 which had been shot near Amesbury in Wiltshire, and which 

 was an undoubted European Hawk-Owl. Doubtless the spe- 

 cimen obtained in the Shetlands, which was destroyed by moih, 

 was also a wanderer from Scandinavia. 



Range outside the British Islands. — Throughout the pine-regions 

 of the northern parts of Europe and Northern Asia to Kamt- 

 chatka, Mr. Seebohm says that the Siberian bird differs from 

 the European form in having the under-parts purer white, and 

 the dark parts darker and greyer. It has occurred in Alaska. 

 The winter range of the Hawk-Owl does not extend far to the 

 south of its breeding area, but it occasionally visits Denmark 

 and Northern Germany, and has occurred in Poland, Austria, 

 and Northern France. It also winters in Central and Southern 

 Russia, but in Northern Turkestan it is a resident, and has not 

 been found migrating farther south. 



