'Sqi] Brewster, Dcs^criptions of Nc-m Birds. j -irt 



DESCRIPTIONS OF SEVEN SUPPOSED NEW NORTH 

 AMERICAN BIRDS.* 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



Megascops asio aikeni,t new subspecies. Aiken's Screech 



Owl. 



SuBSPEC. CHAR. — Of about the size oi M. bendirei, with the ground 

 color more ash^v; the dark markings coarser, and more numerous and con- 

 spicuous, than in any other North American member of the genus. 



Female ad. (No. 7503, collection of William Brewster, El Paso County, 

 Colorado, May 29, 1872; C. E. Aiken). — Ground color of both upper and 

 lower parts plain ash-gray; the legs, flanks, under tail-coverts, crown, and 

 back and sides of neck, white, mixed with gray on the crown and faintly 

 tinged with dull vinaceous on the scapulars and back; outer edges of 

 outer scapulars and wing-coverts pure white, the former narrowly tipped 

 and margined with black; the usual light spots and bars on primaries and 

 secondaries whiter than in most members of the genus but not as con- 

 spicuous as in M. max-vellicB\ tail obscurely banded with ashy or rusty 

 white; feathers of the face with numerous fine bars of reddish brown; 

 lores and superciliary region soiled white, the shafts and tips of most of 

 the feathers black or dark brown; wing-coverts, scapulars, top of head, 

 hind neck, back, breast, sides, and abdomen with broad, coarse, mesial 

 streaks and stripes of dull black, these very conspicuous everywhere but 

 most so on the top of head, wing-coverts, and breast; legs, flanks, and 

 under tail-coverts with obscure transverse spots and bars of reddish 

 brown ; remainder of under parts with fine, but very regular and distinct, 

 blackish bars which form lateral oft'shoots of the mesial streaks; under 

 wing-coverts tawny with obscure brownish mottling. Wing 6.56; tail, 

 3. So; tarsus, 1.37; bill from nostril, .47 inch. 



The specimen just described bears a somewhat close general 

 resemblance to my type of M. aspersiis (from' Mexico), but is 

 considerably larger and lacks the rusty chestnut of the throat and 

 neck and the conspicuous bearding of the auriculars and super- 

 ciliary tufts. The under parts, also, are ashler, and the markings 

 generally hner although much coarser than in any of the more north- 

 ern forms. Indeed in the dark ground color of the under parts and 

 the excessively coarse, abimdant streaking both above and beneath 

 the bird dillers so widely from all of the latter, that I am quite at a 



*An author's Edition of 100 copies of this paper was published Feb. 17,1891. — Ed. 



tNanicd for Mr. Charles E. Aiken of Colorado Springs, Colorado. 



