NINOX. 109 



Length. \\ to 12'$ inches; wing 8 to 875; tail 4 to 5-5; tarsus ri 

 to 1-15. 



Hab. Rare in the Punjab, and N.-W. Provinces, also in Rajpootana and the 

 Deccan. Common in all the more wooded countries, as the Carnatic, the 

 Malabar and Rutnagherry coasts and Ceylon ; also in Central India, Lower 

 Bengal and the Himalayas, extending through Assam, Burmah, Malaya to 

 Nepaul, and to China and Japan. The Brown Hawk-Owl frequents the skirts 

 of dense forests. It is nocturnal in its habits, issuing forth at dusk. It seats 

 itself generally on stumps of dead trees whence it swoops, or rather skims along 

 the surface of the ground or water in search of insects, which are its chief food ; 

 Jerdon says, and occasionally mice or reptiles. It has a peculiar call which 

 it frequently utters at night, resembling, as Tickell says, the cries of a 

 strangling cat ; Buchanan likens it to the cry of a hare when caught by hounds, 

 and Elliott, " the cries of a child." Gates says its note resembles the word 

 Whoo-wuk, repeated several times. 



Nothing is known of its nidification. 



105- Ninox ObSCUra, Hume, Str. F. i. pp. ii, 421 ; Ball, Sir. F. 

 i. p. 55 ; id. J. A. S. R. xxxix. 1870, p. 240; \ Va Iden, Ibis, 1874, p. 129, 

 pi. iv ; Hume, Sir. F. ii. p. 153 ; Sharpe, Ibis, 1875, p. 258 ; id. Cat. S friges, 

 . M. p. 177; Gumey, Ibis, 1854, p. 171. 



PLATE. 



Lores and forehead, yellowish white; tips of bristles in front of and below 

 the eye black ; cheeks, ear coverts and sides of neck deep chocolate brown ; 

 chin whitish. Whole upper surface a rich, uniform chocolate brown, darker 

 on the head and nape ; throat yellowish white with a rufous brown patch ; 

 rest of under surface of body reddish or rufous chocolate, darker on the fore- 

 neck and breast, paler on the flanks and abdomen, the former with some 

 imperfect, and concealed fulvous bars or spots. Under-tail coverts buffy white, 

 barred with dark brown ; under-wing coverts like the back, with a rufescent 

 tinge in some specimens. Primaries like the back, but margined on the outer 

 web with buffy white or whity brown, their coverts blackish ; tail dark 

 brown narrowly tipped with whitish, and with 34 narrow bars of yellowish 

 brown. Bristles on the sides of the toes dark brown. Cere and culmen 

 greenish slate j iris bright yellow ; feet pale yellow ; claws black. 



Length.- \ \ to 12 inches ; wing 7-55 to 8'$ ; tail 4*75 to 5 ; tarsus i to ii ; 

 bill at front '75. 



Hab. The Islands of the Bay of Bengal, Nicobars, Port Blair, and the 

 Andamans. 



Mr. Gurney notices this species in his article on "Eastern Owls," and says 

 it bears a curious similarity in the nearly uniioi m fuscous colouration of its 

 under pails to the more southern N. Theomacha, from which it is readily dis- 



