Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 439 



XXXVII. — Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 



Nos. LXI.-LXIII. 



No. LXI. (March 30th, 1899). 



The sixtieth Meeting of the Club was held at the Restaurant 

 Frascati, 32 Oxford Street, on Wednesday, the 15th of 

 March, 1899. Chairman: P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. Twenty- 

 three Members and one guest were present. 



Y>v. BowuLER Sharpe sent for exhibition a specimen of an 

 Owl from Sao Paulo, Brazil, which he was at first inclined 

 to refer to a new genus, but which he found, somewhat to 

 his surprise, to be a Gisella, allied to G. harrisi of Coloraljia. 

 The specimen in question had been sent to him by Dr. von 

 Jhering for identification, along with other specimens. 



The position of the genus Gisella, according to 

 Mr. Pycraft^s recent classification of the Owls, was not with 

 Syrnium, as Dr. Sharpe had placed it in 1875, but nearer to 

 Nyctala, as it had been arranged by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin 

 in the ' Nomenclator' (p. 116). In plumage the species of 

 Gisella were not unlike Nyctala, but the two genera were 

 evidently distinct ; the asymmetry of the ear-openings, a 

 feature in both, differed in character. The shape of the 

 long aperture was not quite the same in Gisella and Nyctala ; 

 the aperture which is /^// in the ear of Nyctala corresponded 

 to that of the right in Gisella, and vice versa. The form of 

 the spinal tract, so far as could be judged from the skin, was 

 similar in the two genera, according to Mr. Pycraft, who had 

 figured that of Nyctala in the ' Transactions of the Linnean 

 Society,' (2) vii. \A. 26. fig. 1. 



Dr. Sharpe believed that the SSo Paulo bird w^as different 

 from G. harrisi of Colombia, and proposed for it the name of 



Gisella jheringi. 

 G. similis G. harrisi, sed supraeaudalibus maculis ovatis 

 albis ornatis, et caudae fasciis albis tribus : fascia 

 longitudinali auriculari, loris et fascia gulari nigerrimis, 

 nee chdcolatino-brunneis distinguenda. Long. tot. 

 9'0 poll., alse 525, caudte 2'9, tarsi 1"15. 



