70 BUBONINA. 
South Mahratta Country, but is nowhere numerically common. 
It is a permanent resident where found, breeding from December 
to March. It is by no means choice in the selection of a site 
for a nest. A cavity in an old tree, a cleft in a rock overhang- 
ing a stream, a broad shelf on the clayey cliff of some river, or 
even an old nest of the Fishing Eagle, are all at times made. 
use of by this very accommodating bird. The nest is seldom 
well made; a few sticks mingled with feathers, if on a cliff; or 
merely a few dead leaves and feathers if in a hole of a tree; 
but, when they appropriate an old nest of a Fishing Eagle, they 
generally line it carefully with grass, fine twigs, and feathers ; 
the eggs, two in number, are broad perfect ovals in shape, and 
are white in color; the shell close grained and pitted all 
over but still more or less glossy. They average 2°3 inches in 
length by about 1°88 in breadth. 
Genus, Scops, Savigny. 
Of small size; head rather large; large ear-tufts ; orifice 
of ears moderate ; bill moderate, lateral margin somewhat curv- 
ed; nostrils round on margin of the cere; disc imperfect ; 
wings long and pointed, third and fourth quills longest ; tail rather 
short, even, or slightly rounded; tarsus moderate, feathered ; 
toes naked and scaled, inner toe nearly equal to the middle 
one ; claws moderate. 
Scops pennatus, [odgs. 
74.—Ephialtes pennatus, Hodgs.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, 
Vol. I, p. 186; Butler, Deccan ; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 376 ; 
Murray's Verebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 95; Swinhoe and 
. Barnes, Central India; Ibis, 1885, p. 59 ; Hume’s Scrap Book, 
. 386. 
ad THE INDIAN Scops OWL. 
Length, 75 to 825; expanse, 15:5 to 19; wing, 5 to 6; tail, 
2°5 to 3; tarsus, 1; bill from gape, 0°8. 
Bill dusky-greenish, yellowish beneath; irides pale yellow ; 
legs and feet fleshy-grey or dingy fleshy. 
Above ashy-grey, more or less tinged with rufous or rufous- 
grey ; the feathers dark shafted, finely mottled with brown, and 
with a white subterminal spot; wings more rufescent, and 
without the white spots, except on the outer scapulars, as usual 
and on syme of the greater-coverts; quills rufescent, with 
darkish double bars, the interval between the bars dusky or 
mottled, and the light spaces, or ground color, on some of the 
outer primaries rusty-white in some specimens; or, it may be 
said, that the quills are dusky-rufescent, mottled with pale 
bands; the tail rufescent, with double bars, in some mottled 
almost throughout ; beneath the feathers streaked dark-brown 
and banded with white, and mottled rufous-grey and brown, 
mostly grey on the upper part, and white on the lower part of 
