274 ASIONID^. 



fulvous, with larger whitisli or buff mai'kings on the hind-neck, 

 and large white or buff spots on the outer webs of the scapulars 

 and of the median primary wing-coverts ; quills brown, -with 

 mottled tips and broad whitish bars, more or less mottled, inter- 

 rupted at the shafts, and closer together on the secondaries ; tail- 

 feathers brown, mottled at the tips and sometimes on the outer 

 edges, and all with pale mottled or clouded cross-bands ; lower 

 parts white or yellowish fulvous, pure in the middle of the throat, 

 elsewhere broken up by dark brown shaft-stripes and cross-bands, 

 closer together on the chin and breast ; feathers on legs and toes 

 with brown markings forming irregular bars. 



Young birds are somewhat indistinctly barred with brown and 

 fulvous almost throughout. 



Bill pale fleshy yellow ; cere brown, ill-marked ; irides dark 

 brown ; ends of toes dull plumbeous, claws brown {Hume). 



Length about 17 ; tail 7 ; wing 12; tarsus 2; bill from gape 

 1-35. 



Distribution. Throughout the Himalayas from Murree to Sikhim, 

 and probably farther east at considerable elevations, 6000-14,000 

 feet. This Owl is also found in China. Birds from Sikhim and 

 Nepal are always fulvous and rufescent, those from the N.W. 

 Himalayas greyish, the difference far exceeding that between 

 8. newarense and S. indrani, and very like that between Capri- 

 rmdgus europceus and C. unwini. 



Habits, Sfc. Very little known. The cry, according to Davison, 

 is a double hoot. The nest and eggs have not been observed, but 

 probably resemble those of the allied European species S. aluco, 

 the Tawny Owl, which lays 3 or 4 eggs in the hollow of a tree, 

 or sometimes amongst rocks or in an old rook's nest. Another 

 allied form is S. davidi from Moupin (Sharpe, Ibis, 1875, p. 256). 



1159. Syrnium biddulpM. Scully's Wood-Owl. 



Symium hiddulphi, Scully, Ibis, 1881, p. 423, pi. xiv ; id. S. F. x, 

 p. 95. 



Similar to the last, but rather larger, still greyer than the 

 north-western variety of S. nivicola, and intermediate in markings 

 between that species and S. aluco, there being a tendency to dark 

 median bars on the hind-neck, back, and scapulars, though less 

 than in the European form. The vermiculation or mottling of 

 the upper parts is finer than in S. nivicola, and the present 

 species may be immediately distinguished by having the middle 

 tail-feathers and the outer webs of the next pair mottled through- 

 out and almost or entirely destitute of cross-bands. 



Bill green, yellow at tip ; cere olive ; iris dark brown ; toe-scales 

 pale green ; claws black, slaty at base (Scully). 



Length about 18*5 ; tail 8*5 ; wing 13*5 ; tarsus 2*5 ; bill from 

 gape 1*45. 



Distribution. Two specimens were obtained by Scully at Gilgit 



