STRIX BADIA. 



with. It never visits the villages, but resides in the closest forests, which are the 

 usual resort of the tiger. The natives even assert that the Wowo-wiwi approaches 

 this animal with the same familiarity with which the Jallak (the Pastor Jalla of 

 our Catalogue), approaches the Buffalo, and that it has no dread to alight on the 

 tiger's back. 



The Strix badia is never seen in confinement ; the few individuals which I 

 obtained, are from the closest forests of the district of Pugar, and from the ranges of 

 low hills south of the capital of Surakarta. Like most other species of this genus, 

 it is a nocturnal bird. 



The Strix badia has a general resemblance to the Strix flammea in the distri- 

 bution of its colours and external marks. The upper parts are generally dark, and 

 the lower of a paler hue. The neck is surrounded by a loose ornamental collar ; the 

 plumes encircling the eyes are rigid, and disposed with perfect regularity, and the 

 legs are entii-ely covered. A resemblance also exists in the lustre of their covering ; 

 in our bird a chesnut tint prevails, which has suggested the specific name. 



The entire length, from the bUl to the end of the tail, is eleven, and to the 

 extremity of the claws, twelve inches. The head is proportionally large, and the 

 wings reach almost to the extremity of the tail. The general colour of the upper 

 parts of the head, back, wings, and tail, is chesnut brown, with a bright fulvous 

 lustre irregularly diffused over it, which shews itself more strongly in particular 

 patches. The posterior part of the head is capped with pure chesnut, with a few 

 solitary fulvous plumes intermixed. On the lower part of the back, and on tlie 

 shoulders, and the anterior margin of the wing, this colour is likewise con- 

 siderably intense. The upper parts of our bird are irregularly dotted. On the 

 plumes of the neck, the anterior part of the back, and the lesser wing-coverts, the 

 dots are nearly hemisphei'ical, emarginate above, and disposed on the shaft in the 

 middle of the plume. On the greater coverts, and on the plumes of the posterior 

 portion of the back, two spots of an oblong form, and deep brown colour, are sepa- 

 rated by a white line on each side of the shaft ; and on the lengthened axillary 

 plumes several smaller spots are observed below these, along the shaft towards the 

 base of the plumes. The circle about the eyes and the forehead, which is defined 

 above these by an oblique line on each side, have a pale brown tint, and the plumes 

 which bound the collar of the neck, both above and underneath, are nearly white. 

 The collar is highly ornainental ; it consists of a compound series of delicate white 

 plumes terminated by a band of deep chesnut, the accidental derangements of which 

 exhibit a beautiful alternation of the two colours. The circle about the eyes is very 



