SCREECH OWL. 23 



should judge that it is darting at Coleopterous in- 

 sects, occasional fire-flies being seen wandering at 

 about ten or a dozen feet above the highest eleva- 

 vation at which the Owls are flying." 



The flesh of this species is soft and flabby in tex- 

 ture, and pale in colour. 



SCREECH OWL.* 



Strix pratincola. 



Strix flammea, WILSON. 



Strix pratincola, BONAP. 

 Strix Americana, AUD. pi. 171. 



Though Wilson has introduced this bird into his 

 American Ornithology, and described it apparently 

 from native specimens, his very meagre notes of its 

 manners are those of its European representative, 

 the bird being very rare in the United States. In 

 Jamaica it is not at all uncommon, though little seen 

 by day. I have been accustomed to see one nearly 

 every evening, emerge from some lofty woods on 

 a hill just above Bluefields, soon after sunset, and 

 fly heavily over the pasture and house, uttering a 

 querulous cry, kep, kep t kep 9 in a sharp tone, without 

 intermission. Sometimes it was followed by another, 

 and both would betake themselves to a large cotton- 

 tree at the border of the opposite woods, where they 



* Length 17 inches, expanse 46, tail 5f, flexure 13^, rictus 2, tarsus 

 3$, middle toe If, claw 1. 



