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section, in several of the particulars mentioned above it resembles 

 the Screech-Owls, and therefore we are bound to deem it a con- 

 necting link between them. The pterylological characters of 

 Photodilus seem not to have been fully investigated/ but it is 

 found on the one hand to want the singular bony tarsal loop, as 

 well as the manubrial process, while on the other its clavicles are 

 not united into a furcula to meet the keel, and the posterior margin 

 of the sternum has processes and fissures like those of the Tawny- 

 Owl section. Photodilus having thus to be removed from the 

 Screech-Owl section, Prof. Milne-Edwards has replaced it by a new 

 form, Heliodilus, from Madagascar (Comptes Rendus, 1887, p. 1282), 

 described at length by him in M. Grandidier's great work on the 

 natural history of that island {Oiseaux, i. pp. 113-118, jils. xxxvi. 

 a-c). The unexpected results thus obtained preach caution in regard 

 to the classification of other Owls, and add to the misgivings that 

 every honest ornithologist must feel as to former attempts to 

 methodize the whole group — misgivings that had already arisen 

 from the great diversity of opinion displayed by previous classifiers, 

 hardly two of whom seem able to agi^ee. Moreover, the difficulties 

 Avhich beset the study of the Owls are not limited to their respective 

 relations, but extend to their scientific terminology, which has long 

 been in a state so bewildering that nothing but the strictest 

 adherence to the very letter of the laws of nomenclature, which 

 until lately have been approved in principle by all but an insignifi- 

 cant number of zoologists, can clear up the confusion into which the 

 matter has been thrown by heedless or ignorant writers — some of 

 those who are in general most careful to avoid error being not wholly 

 free from blame in this respect. 



A few words are therefore here needed on this most unprofitable 

 subject.^ Under the generic term Strix, Linnaeus placed all the Owls 

 known to him ; but Brisson most justifiably divided that genus, and 

 in so doing fixed upon Strix stridida — the aforesaid Tawny Owl — as 

 its type, while under the name of Asio he established a second 

 genus, of which his contemporary's S. otus, presently to be men- 

 tioned, is the type. Some years later Savigny, who had very 

 peculiar notions on nomenclature, disregarding the act of Brisson, 

 chose to recognize the Linnagan *S'. flammea — the Screech-Owl before 

 spoken of — as the type of the genus Strix, which genus he further 

 dissevered, and his example was largely followed until Fleming gave 

 to the Screech-Owl the generic name of Aluco,^ by which it had been 

 known for more than three hundred years, and reserved Strix for 

 the Tawny Owl. He thus anticipated Nitzsch, whose editor (Bur- 



1 Mr. Beddard has noticed a few points [Ibis, 1890, pp. 293-294). 



2 It was dealt with at gi'eater length iu The Ibis for 1876 (pp. 94-105). 



^ The word seems to have been the invention of Gaza, the translator of Aris- 

 totle, in 1503, and is the Latinized form of the Italian Allocco. 



43 



