678 OWL 
accipitrinus (the Otus brachyotus of many authors), has much shorter 
tufts on its head, and they are frequently carried depressed so as 
to escape observation. This is the ‘“‘ Woodcock-Owl” of English 
sportsmen, for, though a good many are bred in Great Britain, the 
majority arrive in autumn from Scandinavia, just about the time 
that the immigration of Woodcocks occurs. ‘This species frequents 
heaths, moors, and the open country generally, to the exclusion of 
woods, and has an enormous geographical range, including not only 
all Europe, North Africa, and northern Asia, but the whole of 
America,—-reaching also to the Falklands, the Galapagos and the 
Sandwich Islands,—for the attempt to separate specifically examples 
from those localities only shews that they possess more or less ill- 
defined local races. Commonly placed near Asio, but whether 
really akin to it cannot be stated, is the genus Scops, of which nearly 
forty species, coming from different parts of the world, have been 
described ; but this number should probably be reduced by one 
half. ‘The type of the genus, S. giu, the Petit Duc of the French, is 
a well-known bird in the south of Europe, about as big as a Thrush, 
with very delicately-pencilled plumage, occasionally visiting Britain, 
emigrating in autumn across the Mediterranean, and ranging very 
far to the eastward. Further southward, both in Asia and Africa, 
it is represented by other species of very similar size, and in the 
eastern part of North America by 8S. asio, of which there is a 
tolerably distinct western form, S. kennicotti, besides several local 
races. SS, asio is one of the Owls that especially exhibits the 
dimorphism of coloration above mentioned, and it was long before 
the true state of the case was understood. At first the two forms 
were thought to be distinct, and then for some time the belief 
obtained that the ruddy birds were the young of the greyer form 
which was called S. nevia; but now the “Red Owl” and the 
‘‘ Mottled Owl” of the older American ornithologists are known to 
be one species.t One of the most remarkable of American Owls is 
Speotyto cunicularia, the bird that in the northern part of the con- 
tinent inhabits the burrows of the prairie-dog, and in the southern 
those of the biscacha, where the latter occurs—making holes for 
itself, says Darwin, where that is not the case,—rattlesnakes being 
often also joint tenants of the same abodes. The odd association 
of these animals, interesting as it is, cannot here be more than 
noticed, for a few words must be said, ere we leave the Owls of this 
section, om the species which has associations of a very different 
kind—the bird of Pallas Athene, the emblem of the city to which 
science and art were so welcome. ‘There can be no doubt, from the 
1 See the remarks of Mr. Ridgway in the work before quoted (B. N. America, 
iii. pp. 9, 10), where also response is made to the observations of Mr. Allen in the 
Harvard Bulletin (ii. pp. 838, 339), as well as the former’s elaborate review of 
the American species of the genus (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. i. pp. 85-117.) 
