456 Canon Tristram on a new 
ment of the feather. We must therefore picture to ourselves 
the ancestors of the Archeopteryz as terrestrial Reptiles in the 
form of Lizards, having feet with five hooked and free digits, 
showing no other modification of the skeleton, but having 
the skin furnished, in different places, with elongated warts, 
down, and rudimentary feathers, unfit for flight, but allowing 
for further development in the course of generations. 
Here I stop. Having made a very imperfect study of the 
original slab, which requires the most thorough examination, 
I have only been able to make observations based on inspec- 
tion of its photograph. But I hope to have shown you that 
our fossil, unique of its kind, is worthy of the most serious 
study, by means of which a crowd of questions of the highest _ 
scientific interest may be solved. You will, however, find 
the wish I form very legitimate; it is that this specimen, 
when it leaves the hands of its present owner, may pass 
into the possession of an institution or museum where it 
will be accessible to all who wish to make a thorough 
study of it. 
XLIV.—Description of a new Genus and Species of Owl from 
the Seychelies Islands. By Canon H. B.'Tristram, F.R.S. 
(Plate XIV.) 
Ir is with somewhat of the feelings of a poacher unprotected 
by the new Ground-Game Act, that I venture to intrude on 
a domain so sacred as that of the Mascarene Islands, 
which Professor Newton and his brother have established as 
peculiarly their own, and which they seemed to have so 
thoroughly exhausted. But the temptation is as irresistible 
as a stray Falcon to a keeper in the close season longing for 
an excuse to discharge his piece ; and I can only, in mitiga- 
tion of judgment, express my hope that it will not be long 
before I receive a second specimen of my prize, wherewith to 
enrich the Professor’s unique collection. 
I have been lately in correspondence with a gentleman 
who was making a sojourn in the Seychelles from the 
