Scops Owl from Anjouan Is/and. 105 



Aiijouaii specimens tlic plumage is much darker than in any 

 from Madagascar, and is also less mingled with white ; it is 

 especially noticeable that the pale portion of the lower sca- 

 pulars, which is conspicuously white in six of the Madagascar 

 birds, and is coloured light rufous in the seventh (an unu- 

 sually rufous specimen), is much less extended in four of the 

 Anjouan birds, and in the fifth, a very dark specimen at 

 Cambridge (referred to below as B), is absent altogether ; 

 it is white in only two of the Anjouan birds, and that to a 

 very limited extent ; and in the remaining two it is cross- 

 barred in two alternate shades of brown. 



The notch-like spots on the outer webs of the primaries, 

 which are white in most specimens of S. rutilus, are decidedly 

 smaller in the Anjouan Scops, and are a fulvous brown in 

 the five specimens which I have examined. 



The average wing-measurement in the Anjouan Scops is 

 a little longer tlian in S. rutilus, and the lower portion of 

 the tarsus, which is feathered in S. rutilus, is bare in the 

 Scops from Anjouan Island. 



Of the five Anjouan specimens which I have measured, 

 the tarsi are bare in two cases for '40 of an inch, in two 

 for '50, and in one for "55, whereas six of the examples of 

 S. rutilus which I have examined are feathered to the root of 

 the toes, and in the seventh the feathering only falls short of 

 that point by 'IS of an inch. 



As regards the measurements of the Anjouan specimens, 

 which unfortunately are not sexed, the tarsus is 1*25 inch 

 in two examples, 1"30 in one, 1'40 in another, and 1*50 in 

 the remaining instance; the middle toe is '70 [s. u.) in one 

 case, 'SO in two, and '85 in the two others. The wing- 

 measurement is 6'70 inches in three cases and 680 in the 

 two others. 



I may give, for comparison, the wing-measurements of the 

 seven specimens of S. rutilus, as under : — 



^ 6*20 inches; ^ 6'40 ; four not sexed, G^iO, 6'-15, 6-50, 

 6-50; ? 6-55. 



I ought, however, to add that in ' The Ibis,' 1869, p. 452, 

 I recorded five Madagascar specimens of S. rutilus in the 



