TAWNY OWL. 149 



ornithologists, and may finally lead to more satisfactory 

 results : it being understood that on some points, which are 

 chiefly of detail, the scheme projected by his friends is not 

 strictly observed, and that they accordingly are not respon- 

 sible for any of the statements here made. 



A cursory examination of the sternum shews that in the 

 Owls this important bone presents two very distinct forms : 

 one, which is incomparably the most usual, wherein the 

 hinder margin is characterized by the possession of two or 

 four more or less deep clefts, and the other form, in which 

 this margin is entire or slightly sinuated. Though in a 

 general way no great reliance is to be placed upon characters 

 drawn from the posterior portion of the sternum-, it is thought 

 that in the present case this one may be trusted, for it is 

 found to be combined, in the uncleft form, with others : 

 the absence, for instance, of the manubrial process in front 

 of the sternum and the junction of the broad keel of that 

 bone with the furcula ; the remarkable distribution of the 

 feathers upon the breast, which is almost singular among 

 Birds* ; the peculiar shape of the fold of skin, or operculum, 

 which lies over the orifice of the ear ; the straightness of 

 the beak at its base, and the serrated middle-claw. In all 

 these characters the Barn-Owl and its allies dilier from 

 other Owls, and therefore, by whatever generic name they 

 are called, they seem to stand as one of the chief groups 

 and one, perhaps, equal in systematic value to that which 

 may be briefly characterized by the fissured sternum and 

 includes all the rest of the genera. This other group may 

 further be easily subdivided into the Owls which possess an 

 operculum to the ear and the Owls which do not, -and it 

 will be sufficient here to state that to the first of these sub- 

 divisions belong the Tawny, Tengmalm's, the Long-eared 

 and Short-eared Owls, and to the second the remainder of 

 the species which will be included in this work. It thus 

 follows that no dependence is placed in this arrangement 

 upon the tufts of feathers — the so-called " horns " or " ears," 



* See Nitzsch's ' Ptei\vlogr<apliy.' Ray Society's Translation, pp. 7<^, 71. 



