STRIGID.^. 



295 



THE HAWK-OWL. 



SuRNiA FUNKREA (Liniiceus). 



An example of this rare wanderer to Great Britain was taken in 

 an exhausted state off the coast of Cornwall in March 1830; a 

 second was shot near Yatton, in Somersetshire, while hawking for 

 prey on a sunny afternoon in August 1847 ; a third on Unst, in the 

 Shetland Islands, in the winter of 1860-61 ; a fourth near Glasgow 

 in December 1863 ; and a fifth near Greenock in November 1868. 

 Of the above, I believe that all which are now available for critical 

 examination belong to the North American form — distinguished by 

 trinomialists in the United States as 6'. tdnla caparoch — -in which the 

 dark transverse bands of the under parts are more ruddy than in the 

 European, and the white on the upper parts is rather more pro- 

 nounced. There can be little doubt that the American visitors had 

 received aid from vessels for Bristol and the Clyde ; a genuine 

 example of the European form has, however, been obtained near 

 Amesbury, Wilts, and identified by Mr. R. B. Sharpe (P. Z. S., 

 1876, p. 334); while the Shetland bird (destroyed by moth) was 

 also, judging by the description, from the Old World. 



