66 General Notes. Auk 
Jan. 
fault in my present contention, I hope to be promptly set right by some 
one who may be able to see further into the intricate matter than I can. 
I will put the case in the following shape: 
I. The genus S/rix Linn., S. N., I, roth ed., 1758, p. 92, included, of 
course, all Owls known to him. S. a/uco Linn., zbéd., p. 93, sp. No. 6, is 
the Barn Owl, as shown by the references. But how does this fact make 
S. aluco of 1758 the “type” of Strix? There are no ‘‘types” of Linnzan 
genera which included more than one species, except by some subsequent 
process of restriction by elimination at the hands of some other author. 
2. he species Sz7z~ alco of linn. S. N., I; 12th ed:, 1766, p. 132; 
No. 7, is the Wood Owl, a bird of a different modern family from S. aluco 
of 1758. 
3- Meanwhile, between the dates 1758 and 1766, the Linnean genus 
Strix was first subdivided, by Brisson, in 1760; and Brisson made S. 
stridula the type of his restricted genus S7rzx. This act placed the Wood 
Owls in the genus S¢rzx Briss., 1760, and threw the Barn Owls out of the 
genus S¢rzx Linn., 1758. Asa further consequence, the family to which 
the Wood Owl belongs is Strigide. 
4. The first tenable generic name for the Barn Owls appears to be 
Aluco, Fleming, Philos. Zool., II, 1822, p. 236; and if so, the family to 
which the Barn Owls belongs is Aluconide. 
5. It seems to me, therefore, that our two families of Owls should stand 
as they have stood in my ‘Key’ since 1884, and not as they do in the 
INS (Os Ula, Lense 
I may add that Professor Newton, Ibis, 1876, pp. 94-104, reached the 
same conclusion, which he also maintained in Dict. B., 1894, p. 673. 
This is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he employed a somewhat 
different course of reasoning, not taking Linneus back of 1766, and thus 
differing from the A. O. U. Code. But I think my own argument is 
strictly according to the Code. — ELLtiorr Cours, Washington, D. C. 
The ‘Churca’ (Geococcyx caltfornianus). — The ‘ Land of Sunshine,’ 
XI, No. 6, Nov., 1899, contains a translation (from Docs. para la Hist. 
Mexico, 4th ser.) of certain Memorias para la historia natural de 
California, written by an anonymous Franciscan priest in the year 1790. 
Among the birds noted is the following: 
“The Churca is a kind of pheasant which has a long bill, dark plum- 
age, a handsome tail and four feet. It has these latter facing outward in 
such fashion that when it runs it leaves the track of two feet going for- 
ward and two going backward.” 
If we read “toes” for “feet,” this quaint description is unmistakably 
that of the Roadrunner or Chaparral Cock, as the editor of the Magazine, 
Mr. Charles L. Lummis, remarks in a footnote; and the notice antedates 
by many years the scientific description of Saurothera californiana by 
Lesson in 1829. —ELLiotr Cours, Washington, D. C. 
