OWL 671 
last one species, G. cunicularia, with many of the habits of a 
WHEATEAR, bores a hole from 3 to 6 feet long in a bank or the 
side of a biscacha’s burrow, placing its nest at the end; but 
Geobates, which is peculiar to the grassy plains (campos) of South- 
eastern Brazil, has much the habits of a LARK or PIpiT, together 
with the elongated cubital feathers characteristic of those forms, 
while another, Upucerthia, inhabits the most sterile of the upland 
deserts. None of these birds is of any particular beauty, but to 
the ornithologist they form a most interesting group, the position 
of which was for a long while wholly mistaken, and it was only 
when their anatomical structure came to be known that their place 
was determined among the TRACHEOPHON”. 
OWL, the Anglo-Saxon Ule, Swedish Uggla, and German Lule— 
all allied to the Latin Ulula, and evidently of imitative origin—the 
general English name for every nocturnal Bird-of-Prey,! of which 
group nearly two hundred species have been recognized. The Owls 
form a very natural assemblage, and one about the limits of which 
no doubt has for a long while existed. Placed by nearly all 
systematists for many years as a Family of the Order Accipitres (or 
whatever may have been the equivalent term used by the particular 
taxonomer), there has been of late a disposition to regard them as 
forming a group of higher rank. On many accounts it is plain that 
they differ from the ordinary diurnal Birds-of-Prey, more than the 
latter do among themselves; and, though in some respects Owls 
have a superficial likeness to the NIGHTJARS,? and a resemblance 
more deeply seated to the GUACHARO, even the last has not been 
made out to have any strong affinity to them. A good deal is 
therefore to be said for the opinion which would rank the Owls as 
an independent Order, or at any rate Suborder, Striges. Whatever 
be the position assigned to the group, its subdivision has always 
been a fruitful matter of discussion, owing to the great resemblance 
obtaining among all its members, and the existence of safe characters 
' for its division has only lately been at all generally recognized. 
By the older naturalists, it is true, Owls were divided, as was first 
1 The poverty of the English language—generally so rich in synonyms—is here 
very remarkable. Though four well-known if not common species of Owls are 
native to Britain, to say nothing of half a dozen others which occur with greater 
or less frequency, none of them has ever acquired an absolutely individual name, 
and various prefixes have to be used to distinguish them. It is almost the same 
in other countries where English is spoken, though North America has its 
‘*Saw-whet”’ and New Zcaland its ‘‘Morepork ’—each name from the bird’s 
call-note. In Greece and Italy, Germany and France, almost each indigenous 
species has had its own particular designation in the vulgar tongue. The English 
Owlet or Howlet is of course a simple diminutive only. 
2 In many parts of England the Nightjar is known as the Churn-Owl or 
Fern-Owl, 
