146 EGYPTIAN EARED OWL. 
In the first edition I described this bird, as identical with the 
Indian form Bubo Benyalensis, according to Mr. Gurney's opinion, 
though with doubt. That gentleman is now certain that the two birds 
are distinct species. This will save me the necessity of referring to 
the Indian bird, and from the trenchant criticism of Mr. Hume. 
With regard to its occurrence in Europe, there is but tittle to say, 
except that Mr. Howard Saunders saw a specimen of it at Naples, 
which was said to have been shot near that town. (Ibis, 1869.) And 
Lord Lilford was informed by Senor Graells, that he had met with it 
in Catalonia. Ibis, 1866. 
In the Ibis for 1869, Mr. E. C. Taylor records the occurrence of 
this bird at Mimieh in Egypt, where he killed three or four speci- 
mens. In the same Journal for 1860, the Baron Konig Warthausen 
gives the observations of Von Heuglin in Upper Egypt, but though 
I shall quote this gentleman himself presently, yet as the Baron's 
remarks apply merely to its nidification, I copy them here. "It 
breeds in Lower Egypt, where Wilke found two nests on the 
Pyramids of Abusir and Sahara on the 22nd. and 27th. of March, 
1858. Each of the cavities scratched in the sandy surface in a shadowy 
but not dark locality contained three fresh eggs." 
"The eggs of one brood are more elongate, those of the other more 
rounded; all having a regular form, the greatest diameter passing 
through the centre, and the profile descending, the poles sometimes 
in a more gentle, sometimes in a more abrupt elliptical curve. The 
length varies between twenty-two and twenty-four lines, the breadth 
between eighteen and a half and twenty; the largest specimen is 
twenty-four lines long and twenty broad, the smallest twenty-two long 
and nineteen broad; the weight is forty-eight, to sixty grains. They 
differ from the eggs of Bubo maximus in their smaller size and finer 
grain. The largest specimens of Symium aluco do not attain to the 
smallest eggs of our species; whilst the largest eggs of B. ascalaphus 
equal those of Surnia nyctea. The eggs of the latter species, however, 
differ in their greater height and in their grain, the tubular prominences 
in our species being more separated, and not quite so flat and the 
pores being relatively larger and deeper and sometimes forming con- 
gregated groups." 
The Rev. Canon Tristram observes, (Ibis, 1865, p. 262:)— "Bubo 
ascalaphus is the most common Owl of Palestine, next to Athene Per- 
sica, and like it, it adapts itself to the ever varying physical geography 
of the country. In the rolling uplands of Beersheba it resorts to bur- 
rows in the ground, at Rabbath Amnion it has its home among ruins; 
in the ravines of Galilee and the Ghor it retires in security to the 
