1900.] SHU FELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE STRIGES. 669 
fail to incur criticism. Yet when we disregard their carnivorous habits 
and certain modifications which may possibly be thereby induced, we 
find almost nothing of value to indicate relationship between them. 
That the S¢rzges stand quite independently of the Accifitres as above 
limited can hardly be doubted, and, while the Asz¢éacz or Parrots would 
on some grounds appear to be the nearest allies of the Accipztres, the. 
nearest relations of the Owls must be looked for in the multifarious group 
Picarie, Here we have the singular Steo/ornis, which, long confounded 
with the Cafrimulezde, has at last been recognized as an independent 
form, and one cannot but think that it has branched off from a common 
ancestor with the Owls.” 
And the same excellent authority in the volume just quoted, under 
the article ‘‘ Owl’’ further says, on page 89, that 
“The Owls form a very natural assemblage, and one about the limits ot 
which no doubt has for a long time existed. Placed by nearly all syste- 
matists for many years as a Family of the Order Accipitres (or whatever 
may have been the equivalent term used by the particular taxonomers), 
there has been of late a disposition to regard them as forming a group of 
higher rank. On many accounts it is plain that they differ from the or- 
dinary diurnal Birds-of-Prey, more than the latter do among themselves ; 
and, though in some respects Owls have a superficial likeness to the 
Goatsuckers, and a resemblance more deeply seated to the Guacharo, 
even the last has not been made out to have any strong affinity to 
them.! 
“A good deal is therefore to be said for the opinion which would re- 
gard the Owls as forming an independent Order, or at any rate Sub- 
order, S/viges. Whatever be the position assigned to the group, its sub- 
division has always been a fruitful matter of discussion, owing to the 
great resemblance obtaining among all its members, and the existence 
of safe characters for its division has only lately been at all generally 
recognized. 
‘“‘By the older naturalists, it is true, Owls were divided, as was first 
done by Willughby, into two sections—one in which all the species ex- 
hibit tufts of feathers on the head, the so-called ‘ears’ or ‘horns,’ and 
the second in which the head is not tufted. The artificial and therefore 
untrustworthy nature of this distinction was shown by Isidore Geoffrey 
St. Hilaire (Aun. Sc. Naturelles, xxi, pp. 194-203) in 1830; but he did 
not do much good in the arrangement of the Owls which he then pro- 
posed; and it was hardly until the publication ten years later of 
Nitzsch’s Prerylographie that rational grounds on which to base a divis- 
1 This last remark rather borders upon inconsistency when strictly taken with 
what this writer has said in his article «« Ornithology ” quoted in a former para- 
graph above. 
