sae 
i 
SCOTOPELIA PELI. 69 
procured a specimen at Chibisa; but we have never seen it from the 
Cape Colony. Mr. T. C. Rickard writes that he believes he saw this 
species up the Buffalo river on the 24th May, 1870. Our description 
is taken from a Huropean specimen. 
' Adult.—Above brown, most of the feathers with obsolete margins 
of palér brown, more distinct on the wing-coverts ; primaries black, 
secondaries brown like the back, the primaries pale, but uniform, 
whity brown below, the secondaries whitish on the inner web, with 
indistinct bars of ashy brown; tail almost uniform brown, tipped 
with whity brown, and shaded with ashy externally, the inner web 
obsoletely barred with ashy brown, a little more distinct below, 
~ where the interspaces are whitish; head brown, with white bases 
to the feathers ; a broad white streak from behind the eye running 
down the sides of the neck; ear-coverts blackish brown; sides of 
neck uniform with the back; sides of face and entire underparts 
white, the breast varied with brown centres to the feathers of more 
or less extent, the chin and fore part of cheeks also slightly streaked 
with dark brown; axillaries and a few of the flank-feathers also 
marked with rufous brown like the breast; under wing-coverts _ 
buffy white, with dark brown centres, the outermost almost entirely 
brown, with whitish tips; cere blue; bill black; feet blue; iris 
yellow. Total length 24 inches ; culmen, 1°75 ; wing, 19°1; tail, 9'5 ; 
tarsus 2'4. (Sharpe, Cat. B. i, p. 450.) 
SUB-ORDER STRIGES. 
Fam. BUBONIDZ. 
64, ScoropELIA PELI. Pel’s Owl. 
In Western Africa this beautiful species has been found in different 
localities from Senegambia to Gaboon, but in South Africa it has 
been met with only in the Zambesi. Dr. Kirk gives the following 
account of it:—“One of the rarest of the Raptores in the Zambesi 
region. I know of only three pairs having been seen, and of these 
five birds were secured. The pairs frequented the same locality 
every day, and from their colour, were extremely difficult to observe. 
Once started, they found more difficulty in again concealing them-~ 
selves, but remained exposed on some limb of a tree and might 
then be approached, They were observed living in single pairs 
