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IT have invariably found the remains of birds or small animals, 
about their breeding places. 
This species is nowhere I believe numerically very common, 
and in the plains of Upper India it is rare as compared with 
A. Bengalensis, or Coromanda. I have generally found it in 
rocky, broken or raviny ground, and it most affects, accor- 
ding to my experience, the craggy banks of streams and rivers, 
where it roosts, during the day, near the base of some dense 
bush growing out of the face of the cliff. 
It occurs pretty well throughout India, from Ceylon to 
Afghanistan on the one hand, and Darjeeling on the other, 
extending into Assam and British Burmah, where Mason 
mentions that it “often lifts up its boding notes of tec-douk, 
uttered with sepulchral tones at midnight, and like a ventrilo- 
quist, seems to throw its voice to any point of the compass at 
pleasure.”’ 
There are, however, wide tracts in the continent of India, 
in central Rajpootana for instance, where it appears never to be 
met with, dry almost treeless, sandy plains, or bare rocky 
ridges, that do not suit the fancy of this water loving Owl. 
Westwards it probably will be found in Persia and Mesopo- 
tamia; in Palestine it has been obtained; but on this head I 
shall content myself with reproducing the remarks of Mr. 
Tristram, its discoverer there, ‘‘ We can only point to one loca- 
lity as the certain residence of this bird in Palestine. It is 
perhaps the most interesting addition, as well as the most 
unexpected, which we made to the fauna of the country, and 
was found by us in the wild wooded glen of Wady el Kurn, 
running up from the Plain of Acre. We discovered it acciden- 
tally, and at first took it for the Bubo <Ascalaphus, when it 
bolted out of the dense foliage of a great Carob tree, under 
which we were standing; we thus put up no less than four 
individuals in two days. When disturbed, the bird was more 
than ordinarily perplexed, even for an Owl; but owing to the 
difficulty of crossing the gully and the dense jungle, we were 
only able to secure a single specimen which had been put up from 
a Carob tree by Mr. Bartlett, and was marked by me, on to a 
ledge of rocks on the opposite side of the Wady. The Wady 
possesses a perennial stream, well-shaded by ever-green timber, 
and swarming with fish and crabs, the favorite and probably 
exclusive food of the (etupa.” This appeared in 1866. Writing 
on the same subject in 1868—Mr. Tristram says, ‘‘ The most 
interesting of the Indian non-Kthiopian species, is Ketupa Ceylon- 
ensis; and the occurrence of this great fish-eating Owl is the 
more exceptional, as there are no strigide in Africa bearing the 
