STREAKED TUFTED-OWL. 415 



end, below the nostrils inflected, afterwards direct, the 

 tip acute, and at its extremity nearly perpendicular. 

 The cere is rather long, feathered on the sides, its mar- 

 gin forming a convex curve before the nostril, below 

 which it passes directly to the edge of the mandible. 

 The lower mandible is straight, its crura narrow and 

 flexible, the angle wide and rounded, the short dorsal 

 line convex, as are the back and sides, the latter to- 

 ward the base slightly concave, sloping outwards and 

 cerate, the edges soft and meeting those of the upper 

 until near the end, where they are sharp and inflected, 

 their outline decurved, and with a single slight sinus 

 on each side, the tip obliquely truncate. 



The mouth is very wide ; the palate prominent, 

 sloping upwards at the sides, with a short central and 

 two lateral prominent lines, converging forwards. The 

 palatal slit is narrow-elliptical behind, anteriorly linear. 

 The tongue is small, narrow, fleshy, sagittate and pa- 

 pillate at the base, its upper surface with a central 

 groove, its tip thin and slightly bifid. The oesophagus 

 is wide, of nearly uniform diameter, it being nearly an 

 inch across when dilated, slightly contracted at the 

 commencement of the proventriculus, which is half an 

 inch long, with thickened walls, the glandules inter- 

 posed between its coats large and distinct ; its entire 

 length five inches. The stomach is nearly globular, a 

 little compressed, an inch and three-fourths in diame- 

 ter ; its tendons unequal, one five and a half, the other 

 four and a half twelfths in diameter; the fibres of its 

 muscular coat rather coarse. The intestine, immediate- 

 ly below the pylorus, which is extremely contracted 

 by means of a thin margin, dilates to the diameter of 



