OWLS AND DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY. 329 
Scops Giu (Blanford, Vol. ITI., p. 291). 
Scops suntA (Legge, p. 139); 8. minutus (Legge, p. 143). 
The Scops Owl. 
Description.—General colour above grayish-brown, more 
or less tinged with rufous, finely stippled with black and 
white, and with dark shaft-stripes and some lighter patches. 
The lores are whitish, some of the bristles with black tips : 
remainder of facial disk light grayish-brown with slightly 
darker markings ; ruff feathers narrowly tipped with black ; 
the outer scapulars have the outer webs whitish tipped with 
black ; wing coverts with pale spots which are sometimes 
indistinct ; wing quills rufous-brown with irregular dark 
barrings and pale patches, most distinct on the outer webs of 
some of the primaries ; tail pale sandy-brown, mottled and 
irregularly barred with darker-brown. Lower parts grayish- 
buff, vermiculated with sandy brown, and with irregular but 
fairly conspicuous shaft-stripes of black-brown. 
Rufous Phase.—The ground colour of the upper plumage, 
including wings and tail, almost uniform pale rufous chestnut 
with black shaft-stripes, most conspicuous on the head ; the 
white outer webs of the scapulars stand out most distinctly, 
and are bordered behind with black. Lower parts much the 
same as in the gray phase, but tinged with rufous. 
Bill olive-brown ; cere greenish ; iris yellow ; feet fleshy- 
brown. 
Length about 6°5; wing 5°25; tail 2:2; tarsus *75 ; bill 
from gape °75. 
Distribution.—Blanford regards a variety of gray Indian 
forms, which others divide into several species, as merely 
local races of Scops giu, which ranges over central and southern 
Europe and Asia and the greater part of Africa. Of these 
local races, our Ceylon bird—Legge’s S. minutus—is the 
smallest and darkest. S. sunia of some authors is held by 
Blanford to be merely a rufous phase, which may occur in any 
of the Indian forms. Both the rufous.and gray birds are 
extremely rare in Ceylon, but have been recorded from a few 
widely scattered localities both in the hills and the low-country. 
