379 
the night air. The upper parts of this owl are light brown, with bars and 
blotches of white; face ashy, with several obscure rings of brown on the 
facial disc, around each eye; breast ashy-white, with brown bars; abdo- 
men and tarsi ashy-white and fulvous, with oblong stripes of dark brown; 
quills of the wings brown, with six or seven roundish spots of white on 
the outer webs, arranged in the form of bars, the markings on the inner 
webs being ashy; tail brown, with narrow bars of white; bill light-yellow; 
claws dark. Different specimens exhibit great variation in color and 
markings; but all may be easily distinguished by the peculiar barred 
appearance on the back and wing-coverts, and the large size of the head. 
Length of female, from nineteen to twenty inches; male, smaller. Speci- 
mens in the Museum of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science. 
SYRNIUM CINERIUM—(G'melin—CINEREOUS OWL. 
Audubon’s Birds of America, octavo ed., I, plate 35. 
This largest of North American owls has been added to our fauna, in 
consequence of an owl answering the ma 
description of this species, having been 
shot some years ago at Huntsburg, 
Geauga county. We did not see the 
specimen, but as no other species 
could be readily confounded with this, 
there is little doubt concerning it. 
This owl is, or was, quite plentiful at 
the opposite side of Lake Erie, in 
Canada, and it is very likely that this 
species, like the Snowy Owl, should 
venture across during the winter. 
Being in Canada, and about twelve 
miles from London, in the latter part 
of September, 1848, we were return- 
ing home in the evening, after a day’s 
hunting of ruffed grouse, when, in 
passing an old beaver dam, at the 
lower end of a swamp, where the 
trees were large, something that the increasing darkness did not allow us 
to recognize at the moment, swept toward us. A close shot brought it 
