IN JERDON OR STRAY FEATHERS. 353 



the wing-lining and axillaries silky yellowish white, except 



towards the edge of the wing near the carpal joint, where 

 the feathers are mingled rufous and dusky hrown. 



The general tone of colouring in some specimen is darker 

 and more rufous, in others paler and more buffy. — Hume, 

 lt Rough Notes/' 



74 ter A.— Scops gymnopodus, Gr. 



Adult (type of species). — Above dull sandy brown, ever} r - 

 where minutely and almost imperceptibly vermiculated with 

 wavy blackish hair-lines ; the hind neck with an indistinct 

 collar of orange-buff feathers, mottled at the tips with the same 

 colouring as the back, and marked with blackish in various 

 manners, sometimes as a subterminal bar, sometimes as a toler- 

 ably broad mesial streak ; many of the feathers white in the 

 centre ; feathers of the crown varied with blackish mesial 

 streaks ; the cross vermiculations being also rather coarser than 

 on the back, all with concealed tawny buff bases, but very few 

 with any indications of a subterminal buff bar, so that the 

 general appearance of the head is very uniform ; ear-tufts 1-in. 

 long, of the same colour as the head, but appearing rather 

 lighter by reason of the orange-buff bases, showing more plainly 

 and extending for two-thirds of the inner webs ; upper scapu- 

 lars rather more blackish, the lower ones inclining to rufous 

 sandy colour ; the vermiculations less distinct and wider apart, 

 the outermost, for the greater part, white, tipped with a bar of 

 black, forming a very conspicuous shoulder-patch ; wing-coverts 

 darker brown than the back ; the greater and median-coverts 

 paler and rather more rufescent ; the vermiculations, as on the 

 lower scapulars, being less distinct; the coverts near the edge 

 of the wing notched with white, the median series with large 

 oval white spots on the outer webs; the greater coverts less 

 distinctly spotted with white near the tips ; quill dark-brown 

 on the iuuer-webs ; sandy brown on the outer, with tolerably 

 distinct bars of blackish brown, more or less dissolving into 

 vermiculations; the lighter interspaces becoming notches of 

 white on the outer web of the primaries, and giving a chequer- 

 ed appearance to the external aspect of the wing ; the inner- 

 most secondaries light sandy buff, coarsely vermiculated with 

 blackish wavy lines ; upper tail-coverts rufous sandy colour, 

 with wavy linear vermiculations, as on the back; tail dark 

 brown, barred with sandy buff, the interspaces more or less 

 mottled with the latter colour towards the tips of the feathers, 



