418 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
Common winter visitor in suitable places and widely distributed. It arrives 
about the middle of September and leaves again towards the end of March ; odd 
birds were reported up to April 21st. It frequents crops, such as lucerne and 
young corn, desert scrub, grass lands and even bare desert ; and sometimes four 
or five may be flushed off the ground in close proximity. Magrath found it 
common round the Sanniyat position attracted by the small rodents which in- 
fested the trenches. 
Specimens examined: 9, Amara, 22-10-17. 0? 23-1-18. (P. A. B.), @, Kut, 
20-2-17, OP 19-2-17 (C. R. P.) ; Qalet Saleh, 25-11-17 (P. Z. C. and R. E. C.); 
Suleimania, 1-1-20 (Ross). 
I do not feel quite certain about the validity of the pale eastern rave (Jewcopsis); 
one of the above (Qalet Saleh) only is a pale bird, the rest are as dark as west 
European examples. 
There are seven other specimens in the B. M. from Mesopotamia mostly from 
Fao which Mr. Kinnear has kindly examined for me, thiee are light birds 
October and March and four are dark birds (one October and the rest bear no 
date). He remarks that there are in the Museum pale breeding birds from 
Siberia, but also a dark August bird, while one from France is as pale as any 
from Krasnoyarsk, and I may add I have an exceedingly pale bird from 
Norway. 
157. Little Owl. Athene noctua. 
Athene noctua bactriana, Hutt. (J. A. S. B. 16, p. 776, 1847—Kan- 
dahar). 
The Little Owl is resident throughout Mesopotamia wherever there is suitable 
accommodation for it ; but it would seem to be commonest in the Samarra-Tekrit 
area where cliffs afford unlimited nest holes. In some places, as at Amara, they 
are not very common but even the oasis of Shaiba has its pair, which frequent 
the old mud fort. Elsewhere ruins, cliffs, brickfields, etc., are tenanted, and 
Pitman found one two feet down a rat hole in bare desert. Pitman notes that they 
begin calling at night at the end of January and pairing takes place early in 
Februaly. Cheesman witnessed a fight between one of these owls and a pair of 
See-See for possession of a hole in a conglomerate cliff on April 19th, and though 
no eggs were found several were seen outside suitable holes in this cliff at Samarra. 
It is reported as breeding in the cliffs from Samarra to Tekrit in numbers. Like 
Little Owls elsewhere this race does not shun daylight and may be seen sitting 
near its hole even in the hot sun and often feeding in the daytime. 
Eleven skins examined: Shaiba, 22-9-16; Samarra, 30-11-18, 19-4-19 ; 
Amara, 9-2-18, 4-2-18 (P. Z.C. and R. E.C.); Adhaim, 26-10-17, 22-10-17 
(two) (C. R. P.) ; Amara, 26-10-17 (P. A. B.) ; Suleimania (Ross). 
These vary somewhat in the colour of the upperparts even in the same locality ; 
they are too dark, not pale sandy enough above for Jilith (from Palestine), and 
they certainly are not glaux (Egypt) and they match pretty well a series of baetri- 
ana from Kandahar ; the feathering on the toes varies ; on the whole these are less 
feathered than bactriana and more so than Jilith but some are as fully feathered 
as the former usually is, while in two or three skins from Kandahar in winter the 
toes have little more than bristles on them. Apart from individual variation 
in colour, season also makes a difference and bactriana in spring is noticeably 
paler than in autumn. On the underside these Mesopotamian birds have the 
steaks not so yellowish-red as in Jilith. 
Zarudny records glaux from the Karun district and both glauz and bactriana 
as resident in the Zagros. Meinertzhagen says he saw glaux commonly at Baby- 
lon. From Mosul, Sassi records two as bactriana (?) and says the adult bird is 
quite like glaux ! Weigold identifies as glaux a mummied bird obtained in winter 
at Urfa while the type of Lilith comes from the upper Euphrates at Der-ez-Zor 
(between Deir and Aleppo) and Hartert records this race form 8. W. Persia! 
