674 OWL 



meister) was probably unacquainted with this fact when he allowed 

 the name Hybris to be conferred on the Screech-Owl. No doubt 

 inconvenience is caused by changing any general practice ; but, as 

 will have been seen, the practice was not 

 universal, and such inconvenience as may 

 arise is not chargeable on those who abide by 

 the law, as it is intended in this article to do. 

 The reader is therefore warned that the word 

 Strix will be here used in what is believed to 

 be the legitimate way, for the genus contain- 

 BILL O F ALUCO EUS . ! n g the ^ 8iri ^ U * Linnaeus, while Aluco 

 (After Swainson ) 1S retained for that including the o. jiammea 



of the same naturalist. 



Except the two main divisions just mentioned Striginse and 

 Alucinse any further arrangement of the Owls must at present be 

 deemed tentative, for the ordinary external characters, to which 

 most systematists trust, are useless if not misleading. 1 Several 

 systematizers have tried to draw characters from the orifice of the 

 ear, and the parts about it; but hitherto these have not been 

 sufficiently studied to make the attempts very successful. If it be 

 true that the predominant organ in any group of animals furnishes 

 for that group the best distinctive characters, we may have some 

 hope of future attempts in this direction, 2 for we know that few 

 birds have the sense of hearing so highly developed as the Owls, and 

 also that the external ear varies considerably in form in several of 

 the genera which have been examined. Thus in Surnia, the Hawk- 

 Owl, and in Nyctea, the Snowy Owl, the external ear is simple in 

 form, and, though proportionally larger than in most birds, it pos- 

 sesses no very remarkable peculiarities, a fact which may be cor- 

 related with the diurnal habits of these Owls natives of the far 

 north, where the summer is a season of constant daylight, and to 

 effect the capture of prey the eyes are perhaps more employed than 

 the ears. 3 In Eubo^ the Eagle-Owl, though certainly more nocturnal 

 in habit, the external ear, however, has no very remarkable develop- 



1 It is much to be regretted that an interesting form of Owl, Sceloglaux 

 albifacies, peculiar to New Zealand, the Whekau of the Maories, should be 

 rapidly becoming extinct, without any effort, so far as is known, being made to 

 ascertain its affinities. It would seeni to belong to the Strigine section, and is 

 remarkable for its very massive clavicles, that unite by a kind of false joint, 

 which in some examples may possibly be wholly ancylosed, in the median line. 



2 This hope is strengthened by the very praiseworthy essay on the Owls of 

 Norway by Herr Collett in the Forhandlinger of Christiania for 1881. 



3 But this hypothesis must not be too strongly urged ; for in Carine, a more 

 southern form of nocturnal (or at least crepuscular) habits, the external ear is 

 perhaps even more normal. Of course by the ear the real organ of hearing is here 

 meant, not the tuft of feathers often so called in speaking of Owls. 



