September 1, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



281 



territory where leucohronchialis and laivrencei 

 occur. 



Thus far I have dealt with North American 

 birds, but there is an additional instance from 

 Italy that demands attention in this connec- 

 tion. In the year 1900 Professor Henry 

 Hillyer Giglioli described a supposed new 

 species of owl which he named Athene chia- 

 radica.^^ This bird was discovered alive in the 

 possession of a shoemaker at Caneva di Sacile. 

 Its origin was traced back to a shepherd boy, 

 who said that he took it from a nest in a 

 crevice in a stone wall. There were four 

 nestlings in this brood. After a day or two 

 all but one of the young escaped. The locality 

 Pizzocco is on the Prealps of Friuli. 



This little owl was plainly related to a spe- 

 cies, Athene noctua, common in this region, 

 but it differed in having 'the tone and the 

 pattern or style of the coloration,' so notable 

 as to at once distinguish it from its ally; 

 moreover, it had darJc hrown irides, which 

 appeared black in the living bird. This in 

 itself is remarkable, inasnauch as all the owls 

 of the genus Athene have yellow irides. 



By the year 1903 nine similar owls had been 

 secured or observed, but all of them were 

 found in nests, where some of their brothers 

 or sisters were the yellow-eyed A. noctua. 

 The parent birds of at least two of the nine 

 known representatives of A. chiaradice are 

 known to be true A. noctua. 



These nine records were only secured after 

 infinite painstaking effort, and I quote part 

 of Professor Gigiioli''s conclusions in his ar- 

 ticle in the Ihis : 



" And now for an attempt to explain the very 

 strange and novel case. Of course, after what is 

 .now known, my first supposition that A. chiaradice 

 might have been one of the last survivors of a 

 species on the verge of extinction falls to the 

 ground. But the opposite hypothesis, that we 

 have in this singular small owl a case of neogenesis 



'' H. H. Giglioli, ' Intorno ad una presunta 

 nuova specie di Athene trovata in Italia,' in 

 Aricula, IV., fasc. 29-30, p. 57 (Siena, 1900). Re- 

 printed in 'Ornis,' XI., p. 237 (Paris, 1901). 



' The strange case of Athene chiaradice,' by 

 Henry Hillyer Giglioli, H.M.B.O.U., etc. Ibid., 

 Vol. III., Sth series, pp. 11-18, j^l. I., 1903. 



— i. e., the exahrupto formation of a neto type 

 with sutficient differential characters to constitute, 

 if maintained, a neio species — can, I believe, be 

 upheld. 



" The term neogenesis was first used to explain 

 this sudden origin of new forms from old-estab- 

 lished species, if I am not mistaken, by my friend 

 and colleague Professor Paolo Mantegazza, many 

 years ago; it has been since used, more or less 

 in the same sense, by the late Professor Cope 

 and by others. I have no intention here of 

 making any attempt to explain the causes which 

 may bring forth such a result; they are neces- 

 sarily various and usually occult. Suffice it to 

 say that without a strong perturbation of the 

 force of heredity such primary causes would give 

 no result. 



" Now, if in the case of A. chiaradice we have in- 

 deed an instance of true neogenesis — and the di- 

 vergence of the parent birds from the ' normal 

 type of A. noctua in different directions would go 

 some way to prove that in them the force of 

 heredity had been disturbed — ^we have before us an 

 attempt at the formation of a new species, a case 

 of singular and intense interest. I can not but 

 consider it as an attempt, so far, for it is very 

 possible that the couple of somewhat anomalous 

 A. noctua now dead — which generated in all prob- 

 ability the four and perhaps eight A. cliiaradice 

 born at Pizzocco, and which possibly may also 

 have been the parents of the couple from which 

 the specimen at Fregona (at no great distance) 

 was born — were alone endowed with the faculty 

 of generating the black-eyed form, and they can 

 do so no more. Again, should any of their black- 

 eyed offspring have survived or should the occult 

 primary causes leading to this singular case of 

 neogenesis yet exist, and should in northeast Italy 

 or elsewhere individuals of A. chiaradice be again 

 produced and be able to breed freely, we can not 

 guess whether or not the force of lieredity, re- 

 gaining its full sway, may fix, so to speak, the 

 differential characters of specific value which sud- 

 denly emerged in the first specimens of A. 

 chiaradice, or else, turning back to an easy 

 atavism, alter the black-eyed form again to the 

 original yellow-eyed A. noctua. 



" In the first ease a ivell-defined and remarkable 

 species would be established; in the second my 

 A. chiaradice would disappear. In either case I 

 opine that the name that I have given to the 

 black-eyed civetta should be maintained, for it is 

 of obvioiis scientific interest to save this impor- 

 tant case from oblivion. It will require several 



