390 NOVELTIES. 



1-5 ; mid-toe and claw, 18; bill at front, 1"2 ; from gape, 1*3. 



Description. — Bill, legs and feet apparently black, with an 

 olivaceous tinge. 



Forehead, crown, occiput, back of neck, entire back, rump 

 and upper tail-coverts, black or deep blackish brown, the feathers 

 margined laterally with dull olive brown ; scapulars similar, 

 but most of them, with a minute brownish white speck on the 

 outer (and in some few on both) webs, near the tip ; chin 

 and throat, as far as the end of the maxilla, white ; rest of 

 the throat, lores, entire sides of head and neck, and breast a 

 uniform dark grey-brown, or grey with a brownish tinge ; 

 wings and tail black, with narrow white bars, in many cases 

 reduced to spots on both webs ; the coverts, secondaries and 

 tertiaries margined with dull olive brown, as in the case of the 

 back feathers, and in the case of the quills, with the outer webs, 

 between the white bars, with more or less of an olive tinge, not 

 reaching in any case either to the bars or the shafts ; abdo- 

 men, vent, lower tail-coverts, sides and flanks, dull dusky olive 

 brown, obscurely barred with brownish white, the white more 

 or less bounded above and below with blackish ; lower surface 

 of the wing blackish, more or less banded with white. 



Strix De-Roepstorffi, Sp. Nov. 



Intermediate in colour of upper surface between S. flammea and S. 

 Candida ; but a typical Strix, with comparatively stout tarsi, feather, 

 ed as in'S. flammea ; wing of male, 9'8. 



This, the smallest of the known members of the restricted 

 genus Strix., I have named after its discoverer Mr. A. de 

 Roepstorff, who shot it on the 1st July 1875 at Aberdeen, 

 South Andamans. 



Although following to a certain extent the type of the English 

 and Indian Barn Owls, it is altogether a brighter and more 

 strongly colored bird, and its legs and feet are proportionately 

 stronger. 



Dimensions. — (From the skin.) Length, 13*2 ; wing, 9*8 ; 

 tail from vent, 4'0 ; tarsus, 2'45 ; mid toe to root of claw, 14; 

 its claw, straight from root to point, 0*73 ; bill from gape, 

 1-65. The 3rd primary is a shade the longest, the 2nd sub-equal, 

 the 1st and 4th, 0'4, and the 5th, 0*95 shorter than the 3rd. 



Description. — The feet appear to have been dark pinkish 

 brown ; the claws purplish ; the bill yellowish white, tinged 

 pinkish towards the base. 



The whole circumocular region, inside the disc, silky white, 

 streaked and tinged with chestnut and with a large patch 



