3 2 Brewster on Kennicotf s Ozul and some of its Allies. 



Among the nine examples before me there is remarkably little 

 individual variation, much less in fact than with any equal num- 

 ber of asio which I have ever examined. The Alameda County 

 specimens as a rule are leather more finely and faintly barred than 

 the Nicasio ones and the ground-color beneath is of a slightly 

 different shade, inclining more to clayey than ashy white. In one 

 bird the under surface is decidedly dull clay-color, which is so 

 generally and evenly distributed that there is positively no 

 approach to clear white even on the throat, lores, forehead or ab- 

 domen. But the essential characters already given are so well 

 maintained on the whole that the description of the one chosen as 

 the type will apply nearly as well to them all. This uniformity 

 is doubtless largely owing to the absence in this race of any ten- 

 dency to dichromatism, for much of the variation among the 

 dichromatic ones can be traced to the combination in varying 

 degrees of the colors of both phases, purely colored birds of either 

 style being, at least in some sections, of comparatively rare occur- 

 ence. It is of course to be expected that larger suites of speci- 

 mens will furnish occasional aberrant ones some of which may 

 approach asio; but, so far as the present material is concerned, 

 the tendency of variation is rather towards kennicotti and '•^tricop- 

 sis." Indeed, as will be seen by comparing my diagnoses, the 

 general coloring and markings of bendirei are so nearly like those 

 of kennicotti in its extreme gray phase, that were it not for their 

 wide difference in size it might be difficult to separate some of the 

 specimens. That bendirei grades into the larger bird at the 

 point where their respective habitats meet is shown by a speci- 

 men (No. 16,037, Nat. Mus.) from Fort Crook, Northern Cali- 

 fornia, which is almost exactly intermediate in size, although 

 more nearly like kennicotti in color and markings. As to our 

 bird of the Southwest border, I believe that Mr. Ridgway is still 

 vmdecided whether it really represents the tricopsis of Wagler or 

 not, but he writes me that however this may turn out, he is now 

 convinced that it intergrades with the form found over California 

 at large and must hence be reduced to a variety of Scops asio. 

 After a careful comparison of specimens I can unhesitatingly 

 endorse this opinion, my Arizona examples oi '•'■tricopsis" differ- 

 ing from some of the more faintly barred bendirei only in the 

 purer ash and sharper streaking of their dorsal plumage. 



Save in cases where this fresh material has thrown new light 



