SYRNIUM INDRANI. 157 



06s. Tke Brown "Wood-Owl, which has generally been associated with the species described by Col. Sykes from 

 Southern India as Syrnium indranee, has of late been separated by Mr. Hume as S. ochrogenys, the grounds for so 

 doing being that it was considered by him to have a more ochraceous disk than the Indian bird, and likewise to have 

 that part not cross-rayed with dark lines. Sykes's type is not forthcoming now, nor are there any Southern- 

 Indian birds in English collections, as far as I have been able to discern, from which it can be gathered what the 

 species really is like. It is, of course, distinct from the Nepal bird (S. neiuarense), notwithstanding that some of 

 the latter species are quite as small as Sykes's specimen was. His description, which applies well to Ceylonese 

 examples, is in part as follows : — "Abdomine subrufo, brunneo graciliter fasciato ; regione circumoculari nigra : 

 disco rufo, brunneo marginato." With regard to the second point, concerning which it may be remarked that 

 there is no evidence to show that it did not exist in the Indian bird, it will be seen that hill Ceylonese examples 

 have the face more or less cross-marked with brown rays, though low-country birds have not as a rule. On the 

 whole, therefore, in the absence of specimens from the districts where Sykes and Jerdon got them, it will be well 

 to retain the Ceylon bird under its old title, until evidence is forthcoming to separate the Indian species, parti- 

 cularly as Mr. Hume lately writes me that he now considers the Nilgherry and Ceylonese species to be one and 

 the same. In order to further the existing information concerning this interesting bird, and more especially for 

 the benefit of my Ceylon readers, who are more or less interested in the so-called Devil-bird, it seems expedient 

 to give a figure of the species, which I have accordingly done*. 



Distribution. — The Brown Wood-Owl is distributed over the whole of Ceylon, inhabiting the low-country 

 jungles of both the north and the south of the island, as well as the forests of the hill-zone up to the altitude 

 of the Nuwara-Elliya plateau. In the Kandyan Province it is pretty generally found throughout all the 

 coffee-districts, and is not at all uncommon in the neighbourhood of Kandy. In the upper ranges I have met 

 with it at Kandapolla, and in the British Museum there are specimens from Nuwara Elliya. In the western 

 parts of the low country it is a bird of local distribution, but in the wild jungles of the north and east I imagine 

 it is everywhere to be found. I have myself met with it close to Triucomalie, and others have procured it in 

 various parts of the Vanui. In the Colombo district it has been shot as near to Colombo as Ksesbawa, and in 

 the scattered jungles, commencing about 20 miles inland and extending more or less to the base of the hills, 

 it is not unfrequent. More favourable to its nature are, however, the continued woods and forests clothing 

 the country, further south, between the Kaluganga and Dondra Head, and there it is tolerably common. 

 Between Kalatura and Agalawatta, in a comparatively maritime part of the country, I have heard several of 

 these Owls on a single evening hooting within a short distance of each other. 



Jerdon remarks that this species is found throughout Southern India, in Ceylon, and the Malayan 

 Peninsula. He makes mention of it as follows :—" It frequents the forest only, and is most common at a 

 considerable elevation. Col. Sykes found it in the dense woods of the Ghats. I procured it first on the 

 Nilghiris, and afterwards along the Western Ghats in the Wynaad and Coorg. It has also been sent from 

 Goonsoor." It does not appear to have been found north of the Deccan, and does not inhabit either Burmah 

 or Tenasserim ; with regard to the Malayan Peninsula it has been procured in that region by Dr. Maingay, 

 Lord Tweeddale being in possession of a skin sent home by that gentleman. On the authority of the late 

 Mr. Swinhoe it has also been assigned to the island of Formosa ; the specimen was described in ' The Ibis/ 

 1863, p. 218, under the name of Bubo caligatus, and was supposed by Mr. Gurney to belong perhaps to this 

 species ; but it was afterwards found to be Syrnium neiuarense, and is described as such in Swinhoe's " Catalogue 

 of the Birds of China," P. Z. S. 1871, p. 344. 



Habits. — This fine Owl, which has received the ill-omened name of Devil-bird, on account of the dire 

 noises which the natives of the island have always ascribed to it, frequents shady forest-groves, woods of 

 moderate extent, and portions of heavy jungle, near clearings and open places. I have met with it half a dozen 

 times without being able to procure it, so sharp-sighted is it by day ; it was, on several occasions, being most 

 thoroughly mobbed by the Jungle-Drongos [Buchanga longicaudata) in company with a host of Bulbuls, who 

 Mere pursuing it from tree to tree with a chattering incessant enough to bewilder a wiser bird than even an 

 Owl ! On another occasion I witnessed its persecution, in a forest near Ambepussa, by two or three pairs of 



* My Plate was drawn some months prior to working out my article, and the bird was styled by Mr. Hume's name 

 ochrogenys, which I have now had altered. 



