﻿476 PROCEEDINGS OP THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. loo 



very albescent, while the third is also a whitish-bellied bird but has 

 more of a light-ochraceous wash on parts of the underparts. 



These three specimens, together with a topotypical female in the 

 ruf escent phase (less so than the June Cantaura bu*d) , a male, similarly 

 rufescent, from Laguna Valencia, and an extremely white male from 

 Culata, 3,000 meters, are ail taken to be stictica. Peters (Check-list 

 of birds of the world, vol. 4, 1940, p. 81) considers stictica to be a 

 synonym of contempta Hartert, described from Cayambe, 9,223 feet, 

 Ecuador. Aside from the unlikelihood of a race having such a dis- 

 continuous range (Temperate Zone in Colombia and Ecuador, zonal 

 range unl^nown in Peru and Venezuela), a single male contempta, 

 from Pichincha, Ecuador, has the little white dorsal spots smaller, 

 less noticeable than in any of the five Venezuelan birds. Although 

 Cantaura and Caicara are in the lowlands, and Culata is some 3,000 

 meters above sea level, the birds from these localities seem to belong 

 to the same form. This makes one wonder about the hj^pothecated 

 range of contempta (including stictica) in the literature. At least until 

 more is known, it seems better to call Venezuelan birds stictica. 



The barn owl is so variable that much longer series are needed before 

 any really critical work can be done on the species in tropical America. 

 In his original description of stictica Madarasz makes no comparison 

 with contempta or with any other geographically even fairly adjacent 

 race. The present allocation of these specimens can therefore be 

 looked upon only as tentative. It has not been feasible to investi- 

 gate with any thoroughness the possibility that our Cantaura and 

 Caicara birds may be intermediate between stictica (or contempta) and 

 hellmayri of the Guianas south to Amazonia. Of the latter race one 

 male and one unsexed bird from British Guiana have been examined. 



The barn owl was recorded over open fields and savanna during 

 February, June, August, September, November, and December. 

 The fledgling was taken from a nest of four in an abandoned house. 



Local name, "chaure." 



Family STRIGIDAE: Owls 



BUBO VIRGIMANUS subspecies 



SPECIMEN COLLECTED 



1 9 imm., Cantaura, May 28, 1948; gonads very small; skull not well ossified; 

 iris dull yellow; bill dull black, feet dull blue-gray; gizzard contained beetles. 



Because of its immaturity, although the bird is fully grown, and 

 because of the fact that no form of the great horned owl has been 

 reported previously from this section of Venezuela, it is impossible to 

 attempt a subspecific identification of this specimen. 



The two forms geographically nearest are scotinus Oberholser, 



