530 Mr. W. T. Blauford on Indian Owls. 



specimens are connected by others witli typical S. malayanus, 

 which isj I think^ certainly a mere variety of S. giu. But 

 under these circumstances this singularly rufous Nicobar 

 specimen by itself shows that Si. sunia is merely a rufous, 

 phase. For in all the continental specimens of S. sunia, 

 although all the blackish markings on the upper parts and on 

 the wing- and tail-feathers have disappeared, the very cha- 

 racteristic stippling and dark shaft-stripes of the breast are 

 conspicuous, whereas in tbe Nicobar skin the dark markings 

 on the lower surface have disappeared, whilst those on the 

 wing- and tail-feathers are retained. It is clear that the 

 rufous coloration is a peculiar phase of plumage, and that 

 the extent to which the brown and black markings of Scops 

 giu are obliterated varies in different cases. 



Another and very strong piece of confirmatory evidence is 

 that to each local race of S. giu, so far as such races can be 

 distinguished by size or deeper coloration, there is a corre- 

 sponding form of S. sunia. The rufous Nicobar bird just 

 mentioned is of a deeper chestnut than any Indian specimen, 

 and there is a race in Ceylon, described by Legge as S. sunia, 

 that differs from the Indian bird just as the Ceylonese 

 8. minutus differs from S, pennatus. in being considerably 

 smaller and more deeply coloured. It is, I think, impossible 

 to come to any other conclusion than that these rufous Owls 

 bear the same relation to the normal grey or brown forms 

 that melanistic varieties of several kinds of Buzzards, for 

 instance, do to the specimens in ordinary plumage. And in 

 regard to the argument which has been brought forward, 

 with some show of reason, against the union of Scops pen- 

 natus, with its excessively rufous phase, and of S.giu, in which 

 no such phase is known, it should be remembered that the 

 remarkable melanistic form of Buleo ferox [B.fuliginosus, 

 Hume) has been found only in the Himalayas and North- 

 western India, and has never been observed in the remainder 

 of the vast area over which B. ferox ranges. 



The genus Huhua, originally proposed by Hodgson for 

 H. nipalensis, has been united to the genus Bubo by most 

 ornithologists, but was kept distinct by Gurney, who attached 



