162 WHITE OWL. 
or spotted irregularly in like manner with two white and two 
grey spots on each side of the shafts; tertiaries, as the 
back: all the quills are pure white on three fourths of the 
breadth of their inner webs; greater and lesser under wing 
coverts, white, sometimes pale buff with small dark spots. 
Tail, pale buff, with four or five blackish grey bars; the tip 
white; the side feathers almost entirely yellowish white, as 
are the inner webs of all the feathers except the two middle 
ones; it is jagged at the end, as are the wings; tail coverts, 
as. the back; legs, feathered with short white, or sometimes 
very light rufous hair-like feathers, shortest near the toes, 
which are flesh-coloured, but covered above with the feathers 
of the legs; claws, brown, thin, and much pointed; that of 
the middle toe slightly serrated on the inner side, and all 
grooved beneath. ‘They become whitish in age. 
The female resembles the male, but the colours are duller, 
and the breast is often marked with the yellowish grey of 
the back, and spotted on the tips of the feathers at its lower 
part with greyish black. Length, one foot three inches and 
a half. The wings expand to the width of three feet two 
inches or over. 
The young birds are at first covered with snow-white down; 
the yellow plumage is gradually assumed, being at first paler 
in colour than in the “old birds, and the breast less tinged 
with it; but being considerably like the old ones, there. is 
not much change as they advance in age. It is long before 
they are able to. fly. When fully fledg ed the length is about 
twelve inches; the bill pale flesh- colour; iris, black; there is 
an orange brown spot before it; the face is dull white, the 
ruff white, its tips rufous; breast, white; back, pale reddish 
yellow, mottled with grey and brown as in the adult; primaries, 
light yellowish, tinged with grey, and only a little mottled. 
Tail, as the primaries, and but faintly barred; claws, pale purple 
brown. 
Varieties of this bird have occasionally occurred. Meyer 
mentions one which was pied yellow and white; another, of 
which the ground colour was perfectly white, and the pencillings 
on the upper plumage very indistinctly defined in the palest 
possible colouring. 
