io8 



ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



dark recesses of a building or a tree, rather than the open 

 grass-country. Seven forms of the Common Barn-Owl are 

 recognised by naturalists, but these birds vary in plumage 

 considerably, and they are all so closely connected by inter- 

 mediate forms, that it is difficult to say where one race ends 

 and another commences its range. 



The most distinct of the Barn-Owls are the large Strix 

 castanops and S. novce hollandm of Australia, all the other 

 species being merely forms of the ordinary Barn-Owl (S. 

 flammed]. Some of these, however, are fairly recognisable as 

 races, especially the pale form, S. delicatula, of Australia and. 

 Oceania, and the island races from the Cape Verd Islands 

 (Strix insularis), and the Galapagos Islands (Strix punctatis- 

 sima\ both of which are very dark and thickly spotted forms. 



I am still under the same impression as in 1875, when ! 

 wrote the second volume of the " Catalogue of Birds," tha: 

 "there is one dominant type of Barn-Owl which prevail >] 

 generally over the continents of the Old and New Worlds,! 

 being darker or lighter according to different localities, but) 

 possessing no distinctive specific characters." 



I. THE BARN-OWL. STRIX FLAMMEA. 



Strixflammea, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 133 (1766); Macgill. Bril 

 B. iii. p. 473 (1840) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. ii. p. 29] 

 (1875) ; Dresser, B. Eur. i. p. 237, pi. 302 (1879) ; B. Q\ 

 U. List Br. B. p. 85 (1883); Saunders. Man. Br. B. p 

 281 (1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Br. B. part xiv. (1890). 



Alitco flammeus, Newt. ed. Yarf. Brit. B. i. p. 194 (1872) 

 Seeb. Brit. B. i. p. 148 (1883). 

 (Plate XL.} 



Adult Male. General colour above orange-buff, with whit 

 spots at or near the end of each feather, relieved by a corn 

 spending spot of blackish; the back and scapulars mottle; 

 with silvery -grey ; quills orange-buff, shading off into whiti.s 

 near the base and on the inner webs, the secondaries rath< 

 deeper orange, tipped with whitish, the innermost secondarit 

 mottled with grey like the back ; tail whitish, washed with 

 orange, the centre feathers slightly speckled with brown, the; 

 markings disappearing towards the outer feathers, which a: 



