674 OWL 
meister) was probably unacquainted with this fact when he allowed 
the name Hybris to be conferred on the Screech-Owl. No doubt 
inconvenience is caused by changing any general practice ; but, as 
will have been seen, the practice was not 
universal, and such inconvenience as may 
arise is not chargeable on those who abide by 
the law, as it is intended in this article to do. 
The reader is therefore warned that the word 
Striz will be here used in what is believed to 
be the legitimate way, for the genus contain- 
Fe in Gees © A ema NOR DIED Sire stridula of Linneeus, while Aluco 
Gatton Swainson) is ‘retained for that including the S. flammea 
of the same naturalist. 
Except the two main divisions just mentioned—Striginw and 
Alucine—any further arrangement of the Owls must at present be 
deemed tentative, for the ordinary external characters, to which 
most systematists trust, are useless if not misleading! Several 
systematizers have tried to draw characters from the orifice of the 
ear, and the parts about it; but hitherto these have not been 
sufficiently studied to make the attempts very successful. If it be 
true that the predominant organ in any group of animals furnishes 
for that group the best distinctive characters, we may have some 
hope of future attempts in this direction,? for we know that few 
birds have the sense of hearing so highly developed as the Owls, and 
also that the external ear varies considerably in form in several of 
the genera which have been examined. Thus in Surnia, the Hawk- 
Gels and in Nyctea, the Snowy Owl, the external ear is simple in 
form, and, though proportionally larger than in most birds, it pos- 
sesses no very remarkable peculiarities,—a fact which may be cor- 
related with the diurnal habits of these Owls—natives of the far 
north, where the summer is a season of constant daylight, and to 
effect the capture of prey the eyes are perhaps more employed than 
the ears.° In Bubo, the Eagle-Owl, though certainly more nocturnal 
in habit, the external ear, however, has no very remarkable develop- 
1 Tt is much to be regretted that an interesting form of Owl, Sceloglaux 
albifacies, peculiar to New Zealand, the Whekau of the Maories, should be 
rapidly becoming extinct, without any effort, so far as is known, being made to 
ascertain its affinities. It would seem to belong to the Strigine section, and is 
remarkable for its very massive clavicles, that unite by a kind of false joint, 
which in some examples may possibly be wholly ancylosed, in the median line. 
* This hope is strengthened by the very praiseworthy essay on the Owls of 
Norway by Herr Collett in the Forhandlinger of Christiania for 1881. 
3 But this hypothesis must not be too strongly urged ; for in Carine, a more 
southern form of nocturnal (or at least crepuscular) wabite: the external ear is 
perhaps even more normal. Of course by the ear the real organ of hearing is here 
meant, not the tuft of feathers often so called in speaking of Owls, 
