PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 367 



Museum collection. In fact, the characters of the four examples are so 

 uniform as to leave no doubt that the Porto Kican Short-eared Owl is a 

 well marked local form, which, on account of its isolation and conse- 

 quent improbability of its intergradation with A. accipitrinus, I propose 

 to recognize as a distinct species. 



In connection with this subject I have carefully examined a very large 

 series of A. accipitrinus, and have been entirel^^ unable to distinguish 

 * between continental specimens from any part of the world. Examples^ 

 from Chili, the Argentine Republic, Brazil, and Costa Rica can be per- 

 fectly matched by others from North America and Asia ; an example from 

 Costa Rica is almost exactly like one from Beyrout, Syria ; another from 

 the Sandwich Islands is undistinguishable from certain American speci- 

 mens, while there appears to be no constant difference between North 

 American specimens and those from Europe and Asia. As a rule, Eu- 

 ropean skins are paler than North American ones ; but the palest (aa 

 well as the most deeply colored) examples I have seen are from North 

 America, In short, I find that in a series from any given locality, on 

 either continent, the individual variation is greater than any geographi- 

 cal variation in this species. 



Although I have not seen the Short-eared Owl of the Galapagos {Otu& 

 galo/pagoensis Gould), I have no doubt of the validity of that species^ 

 The transverse bars on the feathers of the lower parts and the longitu- 

 dinal streaks on the legs, are features never observable in A. accipitrinus 

 nor in A. j)ortoricensis. In other respects, however, A. galapagoensis 

 appears to be quite similar to the latter, but is still darker colored, as 

 well as smaller. 



It appears, therefore, that, besides the common and nearly cosmopolitan 

 A. accipitrinus, there are two* well-marked insular forms belonging to 

 the subgenus Bracliyotus, which, though in all probability descended 

 from the same ancestral stock, should, on account of their geographical 

 isolation, be considered as distinct species. Compared with A. accipit- 

 rinus, they differ from that species, and from each other, as follows : 

 a. Legs entirely immaculate ; lower parts without trace of transverse 



bars ; first primary much shorter than second. 

 1. A. ACCIPITRINUS. Dorsal region conspicuously striped with 

 ochraceous 5 outer webs of primaries with ochraceous largely pre- 

 vailing toward the base. Wing usually more than 12.00 inches. 

 Hah. — Europe, Asia, the whole of continental America, and Sand- 

 wich Islands. (Strongs Island, West Indies ?) 



*■ A single specimen of a Short-eared Owl from Strong's Island, West Indies (No. 

 66235, U. S. Nat. Mus.), appears at first glance to be quite peculiar in coloration, by 

 reason of the general prevalence of ochraceous above, the nearly uniform reddish 

 ochraceous of the rump and upper tail-coverts, and more nearly uniform brownish of 

 the wing- coverts, especially the smaller ones. There are also other slight differences, 

 appreciable to the eye but difficult to define, and it may be that the specimen in ques- 

 tion merely represents one of the many individual variations of the common species. 

 I therefore, for the present at least, refer it to A. accipitrinus, since it would be unsafe 

 to predicate a local race upon a single specimen. The measurements are as follows: 

 Wing, 11.50; tail, 5.75; culmen, .80; tarsus, 1.80; middle toe, 1.15. 



