BUBONIC. 65 



t 



Bubo bengalensis, Frankl. 



. Urrua bengalensis, Franklin. Jerdon's Birds of India, 

 Vol. I, p. 128 ; Butler, Guzerat ; Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 450 ; 

 Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 376 ; Murray's Vertebrate 

 Zoology of Sind, p. 93 ; Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India; 

 Ibis, 1885, p. 58 ; Hume's Scrap Book, p. 366. 



THE ROCK-HORNED OWL. 

 Ghugu, Hin. 



Length, 20 to 23 ; expanse, 44 to 58-; wing, 14 to 16 ; tail 8 25 

 to 9 ; tarsus, 2'4 to 3'25 ; bill from gape, T5 to 175. 



Bill horny black ; irides intense orange-yellow ; legs and feet 

 feathered. 



Above : the feathers of the head and neck are tawny, fading into 

 white, each with a broad stripe of rich dark-brown; forehead 

 brown-black, with a few tawny and white spots ; aigrettes rich 

 black-brown, edged on the inner sides with fulvous ; back, shoul- 

 ders, and greater coverts are varying shades of dark-brown, with 

 pairs of mottled or freckled spots or incomplete bars of white, buff, 

 or whity-buff ; the tertiaries are similar, but have a lighter or more 

 rufous ground-color ; the primaries are a rich rufous-buff, tipped 

 dusky-brown, gradually diminishing in extent inwards ; the outer 

 webs of the first two are banded brown and rufous-buff, freckled 

 with brown, but in the succeeding ones the rufous-buff above 

 the tips is nearly pure, except for two or three narrow, irregular 

 spots, or incomplete bars ; the dusky tips are themselves a 

 good deal freckled and banded, more especially towards the 

 secondaries, which latter want the dusky tips, and have four 

 or five brown bars on the outer, and three or four much narrower 

 ones on the inner webs, the buff between the bars being freckled 

 with brown and dashed with white; the inner webs are 

 clear salmon color, inclining to white on the outer edges; the 

 wing-lining is pale buff, mottled with white, the lesser lower- 

 coverts being banded with faint, wavy, zigzag, brown lines or 

 bars ; the two centre tail-feathers resemble the outer webs of 

 the secondaries, aud the lateral ones their inner webs ; the lores 

 and sides of the upper mandibles are occupied with dense tufts of 

 white bristly feathers, having the webs much disunited, with the 

 extreme tips black and prolonged, and a broad band of similar 

 feathers, tinged with pale buffy-brown, bounded posteriorly by a 

 narrow dark brown band, from the base of the aigrettes, behind 

 and below the eye ; the under parts are rufous-buff (whitish on 

 the throat and neck), the breast with conspicuous dark-brown 

 stripes, and the abdomen, sides and lower tail-coverts with nu- 

 merous narrow, transverse, wavy, rufous-brown bars, darkest and 

 closest on the sides, and almost wanting on the vent'; the thigh- 

 coverts, tarsi, and toe-feathers are buffy or sullied white, unspotted. 

 The Rock-horned Owl is fairly common in all parts of the 

 presidency, 



5 



