3i8 Mr. P. L. Sclatcr on the 



atqueplantarumannis 1768 et 1869 observatarum." As this 

 work is rather scarce, we will give the original description, 

 as follows : — 



" StRIX ACCIPITRINA. 



" Maynitudo circiter St. Ululse, habitus anomalus. Caput 

 proportione minus, quam in congeneribus omnibus, in- 

 auritum. Pejjla parua, antice alba, posterius subferru- 

 ginea, macula pone oculos, palpebraque superiore atris 

 Rostrum nigrum, irides citrese. Auricularum plumae 

 marginales in valuulis albae, circulus lutescente nigroque 

 varius. Corpus supra lutescens,subtuslutescente-album, 

 lituris ubique longitudinalibus, nigricantibus, subtus gut- 

 tatis. Alcn subtus et crissum alba. Bemiges exterius 

 lutescentes, interius albte, nigro tessellatse ; extima sola 

 serrata. Tectrices inferse primarise apice atrye. Cauda 

 alis brevior, leviter rotunclata, lateribus albida, tota ni- 

 gricante transversum fasciata. Pedes lutescente-albi, 

 immaculati, usque ad ungues vestiti. 

 " Obs. ad mare Caspium.^^ 

 Now I do not affirm that the bird thus described by Pallas 

 was not a Short-eared Owl. Very probably it might have 

 been an individual of that species ; for the description, so far 

 as it goes, agrees perhaps better with that than with any 

 other Owl that is likely to have occurred on the Caspian. 

 But it will be noticed that the head of Strix accipitrina is 

 said to be " inauritum,'' which is not quite correct, and that 

 no dimensions whatever are given. Looking to these points, 

 and to the facts that it does not appear that the Strix acci- 

 pitrina was really ever obtained, but only " observed,^' that 

 this name was never afterwards acknowledged, even by its 

 own author (who subsequently always called the Short-eared 

 Owl "Strix cB(/olius"), and that it has remained dead and 

 buried ever since it was published in 1771 until it was resurrec- 

 tionized in 1872, I think we may well hesitate before we 

 follow Prof. Newton's lead on this point. It seems to me, 

 certainly, that it is better ouly to give Pallas^s name '' Strix 

 accipitrina" place as an uncertain synonym. Exactly the 

 same may be said respecting S. G. Gmelin's " Noctua minor " 

 (Nov. Comra. Petr. xv. p. 447, 1771), which is sometimes 

 quoted as a synonym of the Short-eared Owl, but which it 



