SURNIIN^. 141 



irides; their tarsi are usually thickly plumed, and the toes 

 occasionally also. The wings are of moderate length, with the 3rd 

 quill usually the longest; the tail is broad, moderate, or long; their 

 tarsus is of moderate length or short, usually stout, and the toes and 

 claws also moderate, the former plumed or with scattered hairs. 

 Some of them make a near approach in appearance to the diurnal 

 Eaptores. Kaup says that they have very round skulls, a large 

 brain, and small pneumacity. They include several distinct forms, 

 only one of which has representatives in India, the group named 

 Noctua by Savigny, since properly changed to Athene. 



Gen. Athene, Boie. 



Syn. Noctua, Sav, Nyctipetes, Sav. 



Char. — Bill short, curved from the base, hooked ; lower mandible 

 notched, upper one entire ; nostrils situate on the margin of a 

 swollen cere; facial disk obsolete ; wings moderate, rounded ; tail 

 moderate, somewhat even or rounded ; tarsus moderate, plumed ; 

 toes naked, or with a few scattered bristles ; outer toe reversible, 

 very short, with the claws small ; hind claw also small. 



Gray, in his last list of genera, has substituted Carine, Kaup, for 

 Athene. Species of this genus are found over the whole world. 



Kaup, as usual, has sub-divided them into several sub-genera. 

 His sub-gen. Athene has the 1st quill as long as the 6th or 

 7th ; the first five feathers emarginate, but only for the first third ; 

 tarsus moderate, and the plumage spotted. To this sub-division 

 belongs, according to Kaup, the true bird of Minerva of the Grecians, 

 Athene meridionalis ; and also the little A. noctua of Europe, 

 named A. hactriana by Blyth, J. A. S. XVI. 776. This last has 

 been found in Thibet and AfFghanistan, but not hitherto on this side 

 of the Himalayas. It is the A. nudipes, apud Gray, A. gymnopus 

 Hodgson, of Gray, Catalogue of Hodgson's Nepal birds. 



76. Athene Brama, Tem. 



Strix, apud Temminck, PI. Col. 68— Bl,yth, Cat. 160 — Hoesf., 

 Cat. 75 — Noctua Indica, Franklin — Sykes, Cat. 22 — Jerdon, 

 Cat. 47 — N. tarayensis, Hodgson — Ulu H. — Chonhad, H. in 

 the South — Katoria pechak, Beng. — Pin//leh, Mahr.^ — Halhaki, 



