STRIGES. 33 



CHAPTER III. 



The Order STRIGES. 



NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY. 



{Asionida and Strigida.) 



The genera adopted at the Museum by my father for 

 the Striges, which differ a good deal from Dr. Sharpe's, 

 have, with one exception, been adhered to in what follows, 

 but it must not be held that his opinion was altogether 

 matured about Owls^ In the Norwich Museum they stand 

 divided into two classes, the Horned and the Hornless, the 

 latter concluding with the Barn-Owl (Strix) and its allies, 

 but by Prof. Newton's advice Pkotodilus is in this List placed 

 before Strix*. Mr. Beddard considers that it comes nearest 

 to Syrnium (Ibis, 1890, p. 303), and I find a reference in my 

 father's hand apparently approving of this allocation. 



While swayed to some extent by considerations of ap- 

 pearance and plumage, my father would probably have been 

 of the same opinion as Prof. Newton (Yarrell'sB. B. i. p. 1 19), 

 that the real ear was more important than any horn of 

 feathers. Yet he was not one to alter a museum arrange- 

 ment until he saw something better; and thus he left the 

 Owls as he at first arranged them, and described them in 

 his popular ' Sketch of the Collection of Raptorial Birds 

 in the Norwich Museum/ — a little work wdiich had a local 

 circulation a good many years ago, but is not much known 

 beyond Norfolk. Yet I have reason to think he had in his 

 mind a revision of some sort. 



This being so, I am justified in making some slight 

 alterations in his sequence of species, and in a few cases 

 I have thought it better to avail myself of other people's 

 later researches to alter a name, which indeed occasionally 

 his own memoranda authorize. 



* See Newton's ' Dictionary,' p. 672. 



D 



