176 HAWK OWL. 
Male; weight, about twelve ounces; length, about one foot 
three inches; bill, orange yellow, and almost hid by éhe 
feathers: Mr. Higgins describes his specimen as having the 
upper part white, and the lower horn-colour. Iris, bright 
orange according to some accounts, but yellow according to 
others; bristles intermixed with yellowish white feathers cover 
the parts about the bill. Head, small, dusky, and white on 
the sides, the feathers being spotted and the face narrow, a 
black-edged band passes down to the wing; the ruff indistinct, 
a black crescent only appearing about the ears; crown, dusky 
black, thickly dotted with white, each feather having three 
white spots. Neck, olive brown, marked on the sides with a 
curved streak of brownish black, with another behind it of a 
triangular form; nape, olive or blackish brown, a good deal 
marked with white; chin, dusky, with a large spot of brownish 
olive; throat, dusky in front, white on the sides, the shafts 
of the feathers being black. Breast, white above, with a 
blot of dark brown on each side, united by an irregularly- 
formed band; below elegantly barred with dark brown lines. 
Back, brownish olive, speckled with broad spots of white. 
The wings—greater and lesser wing coverts, as the back, 
but less spotted; primaries, dark brown, barred with four or 
five yellowish white spots on the outer web near the tip. 
Secondaries, the same, with two or three spots forming 
irregular lines, and some of them have white spots on the 
inner webs also; tertiaries, brown, spotted on the outer webs, 
forming, when the wing is closed, a broad and long band of 
white with a few irregular bars of brown; the first feather 
is the shortest, the third the longest, the fourth a little 
shorter, the second a little less than the fourth. Greater 
and lesser under wing coverts, white with brown bars, some 
of them regular, but others alternately, on the outer and 
inner webs. The tail extends about three inches beyond the 
end of the wings. It consists of twelve feathers, and is 
wedge-shaped, rounded at the end, and of a brownish olive 
colour, with six or seven or more narrow bars of white, the 
three upper ones concealed by the tail coverts; they are 
much more distinct on the inner than on the outer webs— 
in the latter assuming more the character of spots than of 
bars, and the tips white, the bars shew clearly through, 
bending in the middle towards the end; tail coverts, as the 
back, and with a broad terminal white spot; under tail 
coverts, with broad white bands, and narrow brown ones. 
