118 Letters f Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ^'c. 



I have at different times referred to the Strix maculosa, Vieillot, 

 vel Str. africana, Temm. (PI. Col. 50), which figure I have not now 

 the advantage of consulting. Lesson classed this bird in Otus, in 

 which he is followed by G. R. Gray in his 'British Museum Cata- 

 logue of Raptorial Birds ' (1848), while Kaup assigns it to Bubu. 

 The form belongs neither to one nor to the other ; but a name 

 will probably be found for it in the ' Synopsis Avium ' of the late 

 Prince of Canino *. In the size of the auditory orifices it accords 

 rather with Bubo. The two species bear much the same rela- 

 tionship to each other in appearance that Syrnium aluco of 

 Europe and N. Afi'ica does to S. nivicolum of the Himalaya ; but 

 the difference is greater, inasmuch as the species from S. Africa 

 has a considerably longer shank than that from E. Africa. 



"The East- African bird is perhaps the Otus madagascariensis of 

 Sir A. Smith (Catal. of S. African Museum), a description of 

 which I have not seen ; but it is more probably new and unde- 

 scribed. It is the Bubo (?) africanus apud nos, from Somali Land, 

 procured by Capt. Speke, and described in J. A. S, xxiv. p. 298 

 (1855), where the provisional name spekii is suggested for itf. 



" The other, from South Africa, is clearly the Strix maculosa 

 of Vieillot or Strix africana of Temminck, which, as a sufficiently 

 well-known species, I need not describe. It is larger than the 

 preceding, with a proportionally longer shank, and bears, as I 

 have said, a considerable resemblance in the colouring of its 

 plumage to the Himalayan St/t^iium nivicolum. 



" Already I have a new Indian Raptorial to add to my cata- 

 logue — Hajnatornis elgini, Tytler, nearly allied to H. cheela, 

 but of smaller size and much darker colouring, and with 

 the occipital feathers less elongated; being further strongly 

 distinguished by the markings of its great alar and caudal 

 feathers. Instead of the broad pale band crossing the tail-fea- 

 thers of H. cheela, the new species has a series of three narrow 

 pale caudal bands, — the last subterminal, only half an inch 

 broad, beyond which the black tail-tip is 1| in. Perhaps in the 



* The term Nisuella is used for this Section by Bp., Rev. Zool. 1854, 

 p. 542.— Ed. 



t It is probably Bubo dillonii, Des Miirs, Lefebvre's Voyage eii Abys- 

 sinic, Zool. p. 7^, pi. 3. — Ed. 



