in Ornithological Nomenclature. 159 



Mr. Sclater expressly guards himself against affirming that 

 the " Stryx accipitrina " of Pallas was not a Short-cared Owl j 

 but he notices that its head is described as "inauritum" and 

 that " no dimensions whatever are given." The lattev state- 

 ment " is not quite correct ;" for Pallas begins his description 

 with the words " Magnitudo circiter St. Vlula; ;" and as to 

 the fact of his having overlooked the tufts with which the 

 head of this species is furnished, he is neither the first nor the 

 last ornithologist who has done the like — as witness Buffon 

 (Hist. nat. Ois. i. p. 372, pi. xxvii.), and, with regard to the 

 female, our own Bewick. Indeed, as every one must know 

 who has handled fresh examples, its tufts are not generally 

 seen till they are sought. Moreover Mr. Sclater asserts 

 " that it does not appear that the Strix accipitrina was really 

 ever obtained, but only ' observed.' " How then, I would 

 ask, came Pallas to mention such a minute character as that 

 of its remiges " extima sola serrata," unless he had pretty 

 closely examined a specimen ? But really to do away with 

 any reasonable doubt as to what his bird was, we have his 

 contemporary S. Gr. Gmelin, in 1774, giving (Beise u. s. w. 

 ii. p. 163, pi. ix.) an effective and unmistakable figure of 

 the species under that very name, and, speaking of various 

 Owls he had met with at Astrakan, particularizing " wiederum 

 eine besondere Art, die nach einem Privat-Schreiben des 

 Herren Professors Pallas an mich in dem ersten Theil seiner 

 Beise-Beschreibung unter dem Nahmen Strix accipitrina 

 beschrieben seyn soil, dass ich von derselben auf der 9ten 

 Platte nur eine deutliche Abbildung mittheile." The evi- 

 dence thus afforded is irresistible, even if Pallas's description 

 of the species, saving the omission of the tufts, were not quite 

 as diagnostic as many descriptions I have elsewhere read of 

 other Owls*. 



The next point on which Mr. Sclater differs from me relates 

 to the generic name of the Tawny Owl ; but on this, from what 

 I have above said as to the type of the genus Strix, I need 

 not dwell, and so I pass to the question of the specific name 

 of the Eagle-Owl. The erroneous statement that Thomas 

 Forster " gave no such name " as Bubo ignavus to this 

 species, and the ingenious hypothesis of that author's having 

 published it " as a synonym which he did not adopt himself," 

 might have been spared had my critic but looked further into 

 the subject. In the second catalogue, wherein Forster says 

 (p. 40) he has " founded a nomenclature," will be found (p. 46), 



* Mr. Sclater also errs in asserting that Pallas " subsequently always 

 called the Short-eared Owl Stri.r ccijuliux." 1 In his ' Zoographia ' be in- 

 cludes the species twic< — once under the former name, hut the sen <l 



time (i. p. '■>--) under tliat of .v. ultdal 



