232 BULLETIN 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The barn owl is widely distributed through the island and though 

 nowhere common is probably more abundant than might be supposed 

 since it is abroad usually by night and in the day remains in con- 

 cealment, usually in caves, clefts in rocks, or hollow trees. Appar- 

 ently it early found the haunts of men favorable to its activities 

 since Oviedo writing in the sixteenth century says that there were 

 many owls in Santo Domingo City, and that they came regularly 

 about the thatched huts of the natives. 



Sharpe 84 lists two mounted specimens in the British Museum from 

 " S. Domingo ", one taken by Salle, and the other without indication 

 of its source. One of these is assumed to be the type on which Kaup 

 based his description. Curiously enough this species is not mentioned 

 by Salle, or by Sclater in the paper listing Salle's birds published in 

 the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1857. Hart- 

 laub's statement 85 regarding his Strix dominicensis, taken from 

 Wiirttemberg, is somewhat confused as he says "Vielleicht nur 

 Varietat von furcata; eine schone Tageule aus den Urwaldern des 

 spanischen Domingo." The comparison to furcata indicates a Tyto 

 while the statement that it is a " day-owl " would seem to point to 

 Speotyto. 



Cory collected two males at Puerto Plata, December 2, 1882 and 

 March 1, 1883, and says that no others were seen. On one of these 

 in 1883 he based a new name Strix dominicensis which is however a 

 synonym of Strix glaucops of Kaup, in addition to being a homonym 

 of StHx dominicensis Gmelin of 1788. Cory saw only the two speci- 

 mens mentioned. Verrill says " common, but seldom seen during the 

 day." He does not mention collecting specimens. Peters did not 

 see this species but at several points heard calls during the night 

 which natives asserted were uttered by the barn owl. 



Abbott seems to be the first collector to meet with the barn owl 

 regularly. He secured a female at Samana August 3, 1916, indi- 

 cating the iris as dark brown, bill pale horn, cere pale purplish flesh 

 color, and feet dirty brownish white. At Rojo Cabo he took a female 

 August 29, 1916, and a male March 24, 1921. The stomach of the 

 latter contained a large bat. At Laguna, also on the Samana Penin- 

 sula, he secured a male August 9, 1916, and a female August 11, 1919. 

 From Laguna he forwarded in addition three skeletons of this species, 

 one March 19, 1919, one in 1919 without other date, and one Novem- 

 ber 29, 1923. The latter, received in rough dried form with much 

 of the plumage intact, had five albinistic primaries in the left wing. 

 R. H. Beck forwarded six adults to the American Museum of Natural 

 History, taken at Santo Domingo City October 16, 1916, Tubano 



M Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. 2, 1S75, p. 302. 

 85 Nanmannia, 1852, p. r>4. 



