66 BUBONINJE. 



It frequents, by preference, rocky hills, ravines, and river 

 banks, particularly if the latter are partially covered with 

 brushwood. As noticed by Jerdon, it may frequently be seen 

 in the early morning, seated on the ledge of a rock, looming 

 large against the sky. It breeds during February, March and 

 April, but eggs are occasionally found both earlier and later. 

 The eggs, three or four in number, are deposited on the bare 

 ground, either in a small cave or on a projecting edge of a cliff 

 generally near water. A favorite breeding place is the preci- 

 pitate bank of a river facirig westward, where the sun seldom or 

 never penetrates ; the eggs, though rarely, have been found on 

 the level ground. They are broad oval in shape, and white in 

 color, with a faint creamy tinge, fairly glossy, and average 2'1 

 inches in length by 1*73 in breadth. 



Bubo coromandus, Lath. 



70. Urrua coromanda Jerdon's Bird's of India, Vol. I, p. 

 130 ; Butler, Guzerat ; Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 450 ; 

 Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 94 ; Swinhoe and 

 Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 58 ; Hume's Scrap Book, 

 p. 37L 



THE DUSKY-HORNED OWL. 

 Jangli Ghugu, Hin. 



<? Length, 22 to 23*5 ; expanse, 54 to 57 ; wing, 1575 to 

 16'5 ; tail, 8 to 9 ; tarsus, 2*2 to 2-4 ; bill from gape, 1'9 to 1 7. 



? . Length, 23 to 25 ; expanse, 56 to 60 ; wing, 17 to 17'5 ; 

 tail, 875 to 9-25 ; tarsus, 2*3 to 2-6 ; bill from gape, 1-6 to 17. _ 



Bill greyish at base, horny-yellow on culmen and tip ; irides 

 deep yellow ; feet sparsely feathered ; claws horny-brown. 



Upper parts, except primaries and tail-feathers, earthy-brown .; 

 in some specimens greyer, in others more umber, often consir 

 derably darker on the head ; lesser scapulars, and interscapulary 

 region, and often many of the scapulars and lesser-coverts with 

 narrow, ill-defined, dark-brown shaft stripes ; all the feathers 

 more or less vermicellated very finely with excessively narrow, 

 irregular, imperfect wavy bars of a paler color, producing a 

 freckled appearance. This pale color is, in some, a dull fulvous- 

 white, in others grey, in others pale greyish-brown ; in some, this 

 marking is very conspicuous ; in others it is almost obsolete, 

 especially about the shoulders ; the long ear-tufts, which in 

 some specimens are fully 275 inches long, are of the same 

 dark-brown as the narrow, central shaft stripes, which brown 

 varies much in shade, in different specimens, being in some very 

 dark, almost black, in others a moderately dark hair-brown. 

 There are large white or pale yellowish white patches on the 

 outer webs of the exterior scapulars, and towards the tips 

 of most of the larger and median-coverts ; the tail is a dull 

 rufous-fawn, nearly pure white towards the tip, with four, and on- 



