vi STRIGIDAE 405 
and Java, is a somewhat similarly coloured bird to the last-named, 
and utters a single reiterated note. The habits are unknown. 
Nyctala tengmalmi, Tengmalm’s Owl, inhabits the forests of 
Northern and Central Europe, Siberia, and Arctic America; it 
has brown upper parts barred and mottled with white, and whitish 
lower surface banded and streaked with brown; the facial discs 
are fairly complete, the legs feathered to the end of the toes. 
Only partially nocturnal, it utters a soft whistle or bell-like note, 
feeds on small rodents, birds, and beetles, and lays from four to 
six, or exceptionally ten, eggs. in holes in trees. Its only 
congener, V. acadica, called the Saw-whet Owl from its grating 
cry, occurs in America from Mexico northwards. 
Syrnium aluco, the Tawny, Brown, or Wood-Owl of Great 
Britain—not found in Ireland—ranges through most of Europe 
and Northern Africa to Palestine, and it is said to Tibet; the 
colour above is grey and brown, with white spots on the wing- 
coverts and tip to the tail; the lower parts being rufous-white, 
mottled and streaked with brown. The perfect facial discs are 
greyish, the legs are feathered to the claws. A rufous phase is 
even more common in this country. It is an arboreal and 
entirely nocturnal species, which makes the woodlands ring with 
its note in the autumn gloaming, and less frequently in the 
morning; the sound resembling h6o-hoo-hoo-hoo once or twice 
repeated, rather than the Shakespearean tu-whit, to-who. Sur- 
face-swimming fish vary the usual diet. From the middle of March 
onwards three or four large oval eggs are deposited in hollow 
trees or deserted nests of other birds; or even in eaves, lofts, and 
caine 
rabbit-burrows, though trees may be near to hand; sometimes 
a scanty lining of twigs, grass, down, feathers, or fur is added. 
This genus, with about thirty species, extends over nearly the 
whole globe, except Madagascar and the Australian Region; some 
of the best known members being the northern S. lapponiewm, 
the Lapp Owl, and its American race S. cinerewum—much. larger 
and greyer birds than S. a/uco, with curious concentrically marked 
facial disks—and the whiter broadly streaked S. wralense ot 
Northern and Central Europe and Siberia, which is said at times 
to bleat like a goat. India furnishes S. nivicola and S. newarense 
of the Himalayas, S. ocellatum and S. indranee, the last-named 
extending to the Malay Peninsula; S. simense occurs in that dis- 
trict Burma, Cochin China and Java, S. leptogrammicum in Borneo. 
