278 ASIONID^B. 



throat white, tinged with ochreous buff, and with narrow blackish 

 cross-bars, which are much closer together on the legs and toes. 



Bill black ; eyelids orange ; irides dark brown ; claws dusky ; 

 soles of the feet yellowish (Jerdon). 



Length about 18'5 ; tail 8 ; wing 14 ; tarsus 2-25 ; bill from 

 gape 1'6. 



Distribution. Throughout the Peninsula of India as far south as 

 the Carnatic and the base of the Nilgiris, at all events, but not in 

 Ceylon. To the northward the range extends in places to the 

 Sutlej, and perhaps to the Indus on the west, to the base of the 

 Himalayas on the north, and to Lower Bengal on the east, but not 

 beyond. 



Habits, $c. The Mottled Wood-Owl is chiefly found in well- 

 wooded districts, but not in forests, and is especially partial to 

 mango-topes and large trees about villages. It lives chiefly on 

 small mammals, such as rats, mice, and squirrels, and its call is a 

 loud harsh hoot. It breeds in the N.W. Provinces and Punjab in 

 February and March, but in the Central Provinces from November 

 till January, and lays usually 2 eggs, occasionally 3, in a cavity or 

 hollow of some large tree, very often a mango, banyan, or peepul, 

 there being little or no lining. According to Anderson it fre- 

 quently builds a nest, but this is not confirmed by other observers. 

 The eggs are very round ovals, white or slightly creamy, measuring 

 about 1-99 by 1-67. 



1162. Syrnium seloputo. The Malayan Wood-Owl. 



? Strix sinensis, Lath. Gen. Syn., Supp. ii, p. 368 ; id. Ind. Orn. Suppl, 



p. xvi (1801). 



Strix seloputo, Horsf. Tr. Linn. Soc. xiii, p. 140 (1821). 

 Strix pagodarum, Temm. PL Col. pi. 230 (1823). 

 Syrnium seloputo, Horsf. fy M. Cat. i, p. 84 ; Hume, S. F. ii, p. 150 ; 



iii, p. 37 ; id. Cat. no. 65 bis ; Blyth Wald. Birds Burm. p. 67 f 



Hume 8f Dav. S. F. vi, p. 28. 

 Bulaca sinensis, Blyth, Ibis, 3865, p. 29; 1866, p. 253; Hume, 



Rough Notes, p. 357. 

 Syrnium sinense, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. ii, p. 261 ; Oates, B. B. ii r 



p. 164 ; id. in Hume's N. $ E. 2nd ed. iii, p. 114. 



Coloration. Facial disk, including lores and forehead, dull ochreous 

 buff ; ruff narrow, dark brown ; upper parts chocolate-brown, 

 darker on the head and nape and spotted throughout with white 

 spots and imperfect bars of irregular size and shape, more or less 

 surrounded by black rims ; outer scapulars white, with brown cross- 

 bars ; quills and tail-feathers brown, with pale cross-bands and 

 tips, the cross-bands growing broader and becoming buff on the 

 inner webs of the quills towards the base ; chin buff, middle of 

 throat white ; lower surface from throat, with sides of neck and 

 under wing-coverts, white, with dark brown cross-bars, narrow on 

 the abdomen and close together on the legs. 



Young with the upper plumage mostly banded white and dark 

 brown. 



