390 THE OWLS 



yellow. The disc feathers are not sharply denned, and of a dull white, tinged with 

 brown on either side. The close brown of the upper parts is relieved by spots of 

 dull white, forming more or less well-marked striations on the scapulars, and bars 

 on the wing-coverts. The primaries are umber-brown barred with yellowish brown ; 

 the tail is similarly barred. The upper part of the breast is marked by an indistinct 

 band of brown and white, while the breast and flanks are greyish white with clove- 

 brown striations. The legs and toes are sparsely covered with bristle-like feathers, 

 and the irides are pale yellow. The protoptyle plumage is of a dull white, the 

 mesoptyle dress of a reddish grey, clouded with white, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. At the present time this species is well established as an 

 increasing resident in southern England and Wales, but it owes this position entirely 

 to artificial means, large numbers having been imported and turned down by Lord 

 Lilford and others. Apart from this, a few of the earlier occurrences may have 

 been those of genuine wanderers to our shores. On the Continent the western form, 



A. noctua noctua (Scop.), is found south of the Baltic and North Seas, through Central 

 Europe to the Mediterranean, while other sub-specific forms occur in Northern 

 Africa and Western Asia. For a detailed account of its spread in Great Britain 

 from the two main centres of introduction in Northamptonshire and Kent, see 

 H. F. Witherby and N. F. Ticehurst in British Birds, i. pp. 335-42. At that time it 

 was known to breed in the following counties Northampton, Bedford, Hertford, 

 Huntingdon, Cambridge, Rutland, Leicester, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, and Sussex ; 

 besides occurring, in some cases under circumstances which pointed directly to breed- 

 ing, in Yorkshire, Essex, Buckingham, Berks, Oxford, Suffolk, Norfolk, Nottingham, 

 Lincoln, Derby, Stafford, and Salop, as well as from Anglesey, Scotland, and Ireland. 

 Since that date further information has come to hand, from which we now know 

 that it has bred in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and probably also in Oxfordshire, while 

 it has occurred in Gloucester, Warwick, Wilts, and Cheshire. [F. c. R. J.] 



3. Migration. Resident as a naturalised British bird, and probably also 

 an occasional visitor from the Continent in the natural course of events. Apart 

 from the districts in which it now breeds, it has occurred in many parts of 

 England and Wales, and once each in Scotland and Ireland (cf. Saunders, III. Man. 



B. B., 2nd ed., 1899, p. 301 ; and Witherby and Ticehurst, British Birds, i. pp. 315, 

 335-42, etc.). Most of these records doubtless refer to birds of the introduced stock, 

 and it is sometimes disputed whether the species ever visits the British Isles in the 

 natural way. It must certainly be admitted that on the Continent the little-owl 

 is known to be very little addicted to migration : on Heligoland, for instance, its 



