HUHUA. 287 



Bill greyish white or pale lavender, the tips and culmen pale 

 yellowish horny; irides deep yellow (not orange); claws black 

 (Hume). 



Length 23; tail 8; wing 16; tarsus 2-5 ; bill from gape 1-65. 



Distribution. The greater part of the Indian Peninsula. This 

 Owl is common in the North-west Provinces and throughout the 

 greater part of the Gangetic plain, being far from rare in Eastern 

 Bengal. It has been obtained, though rarely, from the Punjab 

 and Sind, but not farther west. To the eastward it has been 

 recorded from the N. Khasi hills, Assam, Tipperah, and Arrakan, 

 but not Manipur, nor farther south. Sharpe found a specimen in 

 the Paris Museum from China. It occurs in the better watered 

 parts of Eajputana, in Khandesh, Raipur, Chutia Nagpur, the 

 Carnatic, and Mysore, but not in the Bombay Deccan or Concan, 

 Western Ghats, Malabar coast, nor in Ceylon. 



Habits, <$fc. This dull-plumaged bird inhabits well-wooded and 

 watered tracts, where it lives on small mammals, birds, frogs, 

 lizards, &c. A. Anderson mentions seeing one pursue a heron. It 

 also kills and eats crows. Like its congeners it is by no means 

 exclusively nocturnal. The call is characteristic, resembling, ac- 

 cording to Butler, wo, wo, wo, wo-o-o-o, and is chiefly heard in the 

 rains. It breeds from December to February, depositing generally 

 two eggs in a stick nest, more or less lined with green leaves and 

 a few feathers or a little grass. Sometimes the deserted nest of 

 an Eagle or some other bird is utilized, and occasionally the eggs 

 are laid in a hollow tree. They are creamy white (Anderson once 

 obtained a coloured pair), and measure about 2-33 by 1'89. 



Genus HUHUA, Hodgson, 1837. 



This genus is distinguished from Bubo by the important character 

 of the young having a perfectly distinct plumage, an exceptional 

 case amongst Owls. The birds moult from the immature into 

 the adult garb. The present type is further distinguished by 

 having the irides dark brown instead of yellow, and by the wing 

 being more rounded, the 4th and 5th quills being longest. The 

 inner claw is very large. 



Only two species are known ; both occur within our limits. 



Key to the Species. 



a. Back and scapulars unbarred, more or less edged 



and mottled with buff : wing 15-19 H. nepalensis, p. 287. 



b. Back and scapulars with wavy rufous cross- 



bars : wing about 13'5 H. orientate, p. 289. 



1170. Huhua nepalensis. The Forest Eagle-Owl. 



Bubo nipalensis, Hodgson, As. Ees. xix, p. 172 (1836) ; Sharpe, Cat. 

 B. M. ii, p. 37 ; Hume 8f Dav. S. F. vi, p. 30 ; Hume, Cat. no. 71 ; 



