EAGLE OWL. 187 



BUBO MAXIMUS. 



EAGLE OWL. 



(PLATE 7.) 



Asio bubo, Briss. Orn. i. p. 477 (1760). 



Strix bubo, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 131 (1766). 



Bubo maximus, Gerini. Orn. 3feth. Dig. i. p. 84, pi. Ixxxi. (1767) ; et auctorum 

 plurimorum Fleming, Gould, Bonaparte. Macgillirray, Gray, Strickland, 

 Kaitp, Schlegel. Seirton (Oothfca WuHeyana), Beuglin, Hume, Sdater, &c. 



Bubo ignavus, Forster, Syn. Cat. Brit. B. p. 46 (1817). 



Bubo europaeus, Less. Traite, i. p. 115, pi. xrii. fig. 1 (1831). 



Asio bubo (Linn.}, Swains. Classif. B. ii. p. 217 (1836). 



Otus bubo (Linn.), Schl. JRev. Grit, p. xiii (1844). 



Bubo atheniemis, Bonap. C'-onsp. i. p. 48 (1850). 



Bubo bubo (Linn.), Licht. Xomencl. Av. p. 7 (1854). 



Although this fine species of Owl is pretty generally distributed over 

 the northern portions of the Old World, it is very rarely noticed in the 

 British Islands, and only at uncertain intervals. Many instances of the 

 capture of this species in Great Britain which are on record may very 

 probably be those of escaped birds, as it is very frequently kept in confine- 

 ment. It is chiefly met with in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, but 

 even there rarely and at uncertain intervals. It has several times been 

 recorded from Scotland ; and Gray, in his ' Birds of the West of Scotland/ 

 mentions a specimen, on the authority of Mr. Angus, captured in Feb- 

 ruary 1866, in Aberdeenshire. In England it has been obtained in Kent, 

 Sussex, and Devonshire ; and an example was caught alive at Hampstead, 

 near London. It is also said to have occurred in Durham, Yorkshire, 

 Derbyshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Oxfordshire, also at Swansea in South 

 Wales. Several other instances of the supposed occurrence of this bird in 

 Great Britain are on record. Among the most trustworthy may be men- 

 tioned a female, shot near Stamford, Lincolnshire, in April 1879, and 

 recorded in the ' Zoologist ' by Mr. J. Cullingford. This example was 

 examined by Canon Tristram soon after it was skinned ; and he assures 

 me that the bird bore no traces of having been in confinement. It is 

 doubtful if the Eagle Owl has ever occurred in Ireland, the only record of 

 its appearance there being a statement quoted by Thompson to the effect 

 that four of these birds appeared in Donegal after a severe snowstorm and 

 remained fjjr two days, but were not seen afterwards. 



The Eagle Owl inhabits the forest-districts of all the countries of con- 

 tinental Europe, from Scandinavia, Lapland, and North Russia, south- 

 wards to the shores of the Mediterranean, and is a rare winter-straggler 



