350 BIRDS OCCURRING IN INDIA NOT DESCRIBED 



on the abdominal plumes being much fewer and further apart ; 

 the legs also are covered with white feathers, which extend 

 further on the foot and cover the junction of the toes and claws ; 

 the tail is different also — in B. ignavus, the two central feathers 

 being brown, with faintly indicated bands of fulvous vermicu- 

 lations, whereas in B. turcomanus the prevailing colour of 

 these feathers is tawny buff, about eight cross bands of brown 

 being distinguishable, while, instead of the lateral feathers 

 being barred with deep tawny and brown in about equal 

 proportions, as in B. ignavus, in B. turcomanus these feathers 

 are orange-buff, narrowly crossed with about eight bars of 

 brown. The same differences are seen in the wing, the prevail- 

 ing colour being orange-buff, in the quill-lining of B. turco- 

 manus. In the under wing-coverts there is also a difference ; 

 these being barred across in B. ingnavus like the breast, where- 

 as in the Siberian Owl they are nearly uniform. The differ- 

 ences in the upper surface of the two birds chiefly consist in the 

 entirely paler colour of B. turcomanus, the tawny buff colour 

 predominating. — Sharpens Catalogue. 



74 J5.— Scops rufipennis, Sharpe. 



Of the Scops giu group, and very closely allied to S. malaya- 

 nus, and resembling it in the dusky grey ear-coverts but 

 distinguished by the absence of the white ocellations on the 

 hind-neck and of the bars on the centre tail-feathers, and more 

 especially by its rufous quills. The following is a description 

 of the type : — 



Adult. — General aspect of upper surface more uniform than 

 is usual in species of this genus, being of a dusky greyish 

 brown ; the feathers being blackish in the centre, but scarcely 

 to be called streaked, excepting on the forepart of the crown, 

 where the black shafts are very broad and distinct, all the 

 feathers of the upper surface so finely pencilled with dark- 

 brown as to appear almost uniform, with here and there a few 

 sandy-coloured mottlings, more distinct on the head, to which 

 they impart a slightly spotted appearance ; the collar on the 

 hind neck very indistinct ; some of the feathers being barred 

 with fulvous, and crossed with narrow bars of blackish ; on the 

 scapulars the blackish cross lines a little more coarsely defined 

 than on the back, washed with orange-buff, and having the 

 outer web pure white, tipped with black, forming a conspicuous 

 shoulder-patch ; wing-coverts greyish like the back, the vermi- 

 culations very faint and often obsolete on the greater series , 



