2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



cant is beside the point; their Rio Aptire bird is obviously of the 

 northern, yellow-winged race. When first reporting this specimen, 

 Berlepsch (Ibis, 1884, pp. 438-439) noted that it agreed with others 

 from southeastern Brazil, but had the bill longer, and broader at the 

 base, and that the ". . . upper wing coverts are more yellowish, not 

 so much mixed with brownish, and the black stripes on them thinner 

 and finer." 



The species, then, has two races, which are widely separated geo- 

 graphically, as follows : 



Syrigma s. sihilatrix — southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, 

 and northern Argentina. 



Syrigma s. foster smitJii — north-central and northern Venezuela. 



At Cantaura, July 13, 1947, Mr. Smith collected an adult male 

 short-eared owl in good plumage. No short-eared owl was previously 

 known to occur in northern South America east of the high paramo 

 zones of Colombia and Ecuador, and it is not surprising to find that 

 the one collected differs sufficiently from all the described forms to 

 warrant giving it a name. 



ASIO FLAMMEUS PALLIDICAUDUS, new subspecies 



Type. — U.S.N.M. 406386, ad. J*, Cantaura, Anzoategui, Venezuela, 

 July 13, 1947, collected by Foster D. Smith, Jr. (orig. No. 20). 



Suhspecific characters. — Resembling A. f. hogotensis Chapman of 

 Colombia-Ecuadorian highlands in its general dark color above, but 

 differing from that race in having the ochraceous bufify markings on 

 the back somewhat more extensive, in having a strikingly paler tail, 

 the central rectrices being light ochraceous buff barred broadly with 

 fuscous, the pale and the dark bands about equal in width (the dark 

 ones very much wider than the pale ones in hogotensis) and the 

 lateral rectrices similar with the dark bars rapidly decreasing in 

 width, becoming narrow bars on the inner webs of the outermost 

 pair and entirely absent on the outer web of the outermost pair (the 

 median rectrices in paUidicaudus are about like the outer ones in 

 hogotensis), the facial disc more tinged with ochraceous bufif, the 

 breast less heavily streaked with fuscous, the under wing coverts 

 almost immaculate ochraceous buff (much streaked with fuscous 

 in hogotensis) and the outermost primaries with fewer bands on the 

 underside, unbarred for the basal two-thirds (in hogotensis less than 

 two-fifths). 



Measurements of type.— Wing 304, tail 140, culmen from base 30, 

 tarsus 52 mm. 



