Mr. W. T. Blanford on Indian Owls. 527 



smaller size of S. modestus is simply due to immaturity, the 

 specimens being evidently not full-grown. Both S. balli and 

 S. modestus came from Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands, 

 and it is very improbable that two distinct forms belonging 

 to the same section of the gemis should be found in the 

 same locality. 



The group of Scops Owls with a buff collar on the hind 

 neck comprises two Indian forms — the one with the toes 

 feathered above, S. plumipes, Hume (which I follow Dr. 

 Sharpe in classing as a race or subspecies of the Japanese 

 S. semitorques), and the widely-spread and variable Owl 

 known from various parts of India and Burma as S. lettia, 

 S. leinpij'i, S. griseus, and S. malabaricus. All of these I look 

 upon as varieties or local races of one form, for which I 

 follow several writers in adopting Pennant's name given to 

 the Ceylonese bird, S. bakkamcena. S. griseus and S. mala- 

 baricus are simply the greyer and more rufous phases found 

 in the drier and damper parts of the Indian Peninsula 

 respectively, and are just as distinct or not distinct as Glau- 

 cidium radiatum and G. malabaricum or the Eastern and 

 Western forms of Syrnium nivicola. That the Malayan 

 S. lempiji is absolutely identical with S. malabaricus has been 

 shown by a host of writers from Blyth (e. g. Ibis, 1866, 

 p, 256) downwards. These three were all united — the two 

 Indian forms as a subspecies of the Malayan — by Dr. Sharpe 

 in his Catalogue. Blyth, it is true, at one time thought 

 (Ibis, 1866, /. c.) that there were two species in the -S^. lem- 

 jnji group distinguished by the colour of the irides (the 

 distinction was noticed by Jerdon) ; but Hume, in his 

 ' Rongh Notes ' (p. 396) , has shown that the colour of the 

 iris is variable. 



Hitherto, however, tlie Himalayan S. lettia has been kept 

 distinct from the southern forms on account of its large size 

 and of the tarsal feathering extending somewhat farther on 

 to the base of the toes, as shown in the figures at p. 96 of 

 Dr. Sharpe's Catalogue. The large size of the Himalayan 

 bird is in accordance with a general rule, and cannot, I think, 

 be regarded as a specific distinction. The feathering of the 



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