STKIX. 



■■iV, 



The fullowing notes probal.ly apply to .SYn v .a.tanop,. I have „e^ er heard of its e-^ bein-^ 

 taken except on the occasion referred to by Mr. Harrison :-- 



From Hobart, Tas.nania, Mr. .Malcohn Harrison wntes as follows :-'■ .My ch.ef acu.aint- 

 ance vv.th .sVn . ;„..,../.,//„;„/,„- (,„,/„„„^.; has been throu,.h the medunn of the rabhu traps 

 m which .t ,s not infrequently cauRht, and the n.arked difference in size and colour of the 

 specimens so caught would almost lead one to the belief that more than one species exists 

 m Tasmania. 1 his can, of course, be accounted for to a large extent by age and se.x, but it is a 

 strange coincidence that nearly all the specimens of the large bold lookin.^.ird with the dark 

 facial disc and plumage, have been noticed in the Midland and Northern Districts whilst the 

 smaller and lighter coloured birds with the discs around the eyes almost white have been 

 obtained in the more southern parts. Mr. A. H. Brent was the hrst to draw attention to this. 

 Of course this may be quite accidental, and the experience of others may not conhrm it whilst 

 the number of specimens examined is hardly sufficient to enable one to assert positively that 

 such a line of demarcation exists. There have been many authentic reports of the voun- birds 

 being observed with the down still attached among the feathers, but m one instanr; only have 

 I heard of the eggs, or rather egg, of tins Owl bemg taken, v.., by Mr. K. Archer, of Landfall 

 East 1 amar, who was to have let me have full particulars and measurements, but as he was 

 just leaving for an extended tcur on the mainland, I presume the matter escaped his memory " 

 Dr L. Holden wrote me from Belierive, near Hobart, Tasmania:-.On the loth Septen,ber, 

 1882, I found a decaying body of Sln.v cnstanops on the ground at the top of ICastern Inlet the 

 first I have seen. I saw one flying at Glenora, m Southern Tasmania, on the jid February 

 1900. I was sitting after dusk in the verandah of a boarding-house, close to the railway station.' 

 It flew close past the house, having first announced its presence by a loud snoring sort of hiss 

 which an old bushman who sat by me mistook for the cry of an opossum. What is the present 

 accepted opmion about Stru cstauops ? I can only say that Tasmania produces birds with deep 

 chestnut discs and also snow-white discs, for I have handled both ; pait.culars of other parts of 

 their plumage I cannot supply. Probably the albinity denotes age." 



Theseriesofskinsof.s7r/.v,„5/„„„/,5in the Australian Museum is to-, small and their sex 

 uncertain, to satisfactorily answer this .juestion. I can speak, however, with confidence as to 

 Stnx uov.r-holhvuha; knowing the species well, and by seeing specimens dissected, and that is 

 the smaller bird with the white facial disc is the adult male, and the slightly larger one with the 

 white facial disc more or less stained with chestnut is the adult female, and probably the same 

 obtains with the Tasmanian form. Gould's remarks that the Tasmanian bird is larger than the 

 continental one, is not borne out by the examination of a series of skins in the Australian 

 Museum. 



Strix Candida. 



GKAS.S OWL. 

 Strix Candida, Tiekeli, .Tourn. Asiatic Soo. Beng., Vol. H., p. ,572 : Sharpe, Cat. Kd.s Brit Mus 

 Vol. 11 p. 30,S (I,S7.5) ; North, Kec. Austr. Mus., Vol. H., p. 13 (1S92) ; Sharpe, Hand-l' 



Bds, Vol. I., p. .',02 (isyy). 



Adult ^l.Kl.K.-Gen,ral colour above dark brow,,, thr bases of most of the feathers orange-bnf 

 wh^ch extends on to the sides of the feathers of the hind-neck, and hnrin,, a .vhiie spot near the dp • 

 b-sser n^tng-coveres and some of th- ronceahd scapulars orange-bufr freckled u-ith dark bro^vn the 

 medioM and greater rving-coverts dark bro>vn, all but the outer ones with very pale orange-bnf ba.es 

 irregularly mottled or freckled with dark brown; quills orange-buff, dark brown on the apical 

 portton 0/ the prin^aries and onter secondaries, and passin,, Into greyish-white at their extreme tip. 



