Genus SCOPS. 

 Of small size. Cere prominent, the nostrils oval and pierced in the anterior margin ; margin 

 of the bill curved throughout. Ear-tufts large. Wings long and ample, reaching to the tip of 

 the tail in some ; the 4th quill the longest, 3rd and 5th slightly shorter. Tail moderately short 

 and rounded at the tip. Tarsus long, nearly always feathered to the foot. Toes generally naked, 

 the anterior toes subequal ; the inner posterior toe rather short, finely reticulate except at the 

 tips, which are covered with two or three transverse scutes ; claws well curved and acute. 



SCOPS BAKKAMUNA. 



(FORSTER'S SCOPS OWL.) 



Strix bakkamuna, Forster, Indische Zoologie, 1781, p. 13, pi. iii. ; Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 56 



(1790). 

 Otus indica, Gm. S. N. i. p. 289 (1788). 

 Scops griseus, Jerd. Madr. Journ. xiii. pt. 2, p. 119. 

 Ephialtes lempigi, Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 116 (1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. 



Hist. 1853, xii. p. 106; Jerdon, B. of India, i. p. 138 (1862); Legge, Ibis, 1874, 



p. 11. 

 Ephialtes bakkamuna, Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 417; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 433; 



Legge, J. A. S. (C. Branch), 1874, p. 17; Ibis, 1875, p. 279. 

 Scops bakkamuna, Hume, Nests and Eggs, p. 69 (1873). 

 Scops malabaricus, Sharpe, Cat. Birds, vol. ii. p. 94 (1875). 

 Die Hom-Eule BaJckamuna, Forster. 

 The Ceylon Hawk-Owl, also The Little Horn Owl, of Pennant ; The Little Eared Owl of some ; 



The Lempigi Owl, Kelaart ; Koorooi, Portuguese in Ceylon (Layard). 

 Punchi-Bassa, Sinhalese, lit. "Small Owl;" Sin-anda, Tamil; Motu (apud Layard). 



Adult male and female. Length 7"8 to 8-1 inches ; culinen 0'6 ; wing (usually) 5-7 to 6'0, expanse 19-5 to 21-0 ; tail 

 2-5 to 2-7 ; tarsus 1-4 to 1-5 ; mid toe 0-65 to 0-8, claw (straight) 0-4 to 0-43 ; height of bill at cere 0-3 to 0-32. 



A specimen in Layard's collection, now at Poole, measures 6-4 in the wing, and another in the British Museum 6-2 : 

 these are very exceptional dimensions. Between the sexes (that is, in Ceylonese examples, which alone are here 

 treated of) there is no constant difference in size ; two males in my collection measure 5 - 9 and 6-0 inches ; three 

 females 5 - 7, 5-8, and 6 - inches. Examples from the Kandy district are, I think, as a rule, larger than low- 

 country ones. 



Iris reddish yellow, sometimes mottled externally with chestnut-brown, in others chestnut of various depths ; cere 

 olive-brown ; bill greenish horn-colour, pale at the base and dark brown at the tip ; feet brownish olive, in some 

 greenish, soles sickly yellow, claws dusky pale at the base. 



General hue of back, tail, wing-coverts, tertials, and secondaries earth-brown, with blackish-brown mesial stripes to the 

 feathers, particularly on the back and scapulars, and both webs marked with transverse spots of dusky fulvous and 



