74 BUBONIX.E. 



exception of a few bars on the upper portion of the 

 webs of the earlier primaries, (which are unmottled and slightly 

 tinged with cream) ; all the rest of these bars are closely mottled 

 and pencilled with brown ; the second, third, and fourth primaries 

 are just perceptibly emarginate on the outer webs, and the first 

 to the fourth are conspicuously notched on the inner webs ; the 

 sides of the neck behind the dark line, the breast, sides, abdomen, 

 thigh-coverts, a sort of creamy-grey, very soft and silky ; the 

 feathers with narrow rich brown central streaks and numerous 

 minute, irregular, wavy, transverse pencillings ; greater portion of 

 wing-lining, vent-feathers, and lower tail-coverts, silky greyish- 

 white, the latter, some of them, with dark central streaks towards 

 the tips ; tarsus-feathers silky greyish-white, with a faint buffy 

 tinge towards the joint, and with several narrow, somewhat irregu- 

 lar, transverse, brown bars; tail-feathers greyish-brown, with 

 imperfect, transverse, mottled bars of very pale dingy-buff, and 

 with the interspaces, too, more or less mottled with the same 

 color. 



Other specimens answer well to the above description, except 

 that in some specimens the whole of the colors are dingier, while 

 the white of the lower abdomen, vent, lower tail and thigh-coverts 

 is purer ; the tarsal plumes in some are entirely unbarred, and 

 generally the markings are less pronounced and clear than in the 

 first described specimen. In most birds the tarsal plumes are 

 entirely unbarred. 



Only some specimens shew the silvery half collar on the neck 

 described above ; in most the deep brown of the top of the head is 

 continuous down to the broad buffy collar, at most a few feathers 

 on the nape being greyish towards the tips. 



On the whole, however, the coloration of specimens from the 

 most distant localities differs but little. Hume's " Scrap Book," 



This Scops Owl is very rare, a single specimen was obtained at 

 Aboo, by Dr. King, and a pair nesting at Hyderabad by Captain 

 Butler ; these, I believe, are the only recorded instances of its 

 occurrence within our limits. 



Scops malabaricus, Jerdon. 



loquat. Butler, Deccan ; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 377 ; 



Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind. p. 97 ; Hume's Scrap 



Book, p. 402. 



THE MALABAR SCOPS OWL. 



Length, 8 to 8'24 ; expanse, 10'5 ; wing, 5*95 ; tail, 275 ; exterior 

 tail-feathers, 025, shorter than the centrals; tarsus, I 1 05 to 1*08; 

 bill from gape, 0*8. 



Bill yellowish horny, darker above ; irides dark yellow j feet 

 yellow. 



The full description of 8. bakkamwna already given renders 

 any minute description unnecessary. 



Generally it may be said that only the point of the forehead, 



