364 On a New Genus of the Strigida. [June, 



respect to the Strigine birds. Cuvier regarded these birds as consti- 

 tuting but one genus. Vigors raised this genus to the rank of a 

 family, advancing Cuvier' s subgenera to genera. But Vigors left 

 Cuvier's character as he found them, — whether wisely or not, I shall 

 not presume to say. I suspect, however, that, as species multiply and 

 become accurately known, resort will be had to characters analo- 

 gous to those by which the Diurnal Raptores (to go no further) are 

 generically distinguished, if not from a sense of the superficialness of 

 the old characters, yet from a want of determinate new ones. It is 

 surely reasonable to distinguish all the Raptores upon similar princi- 

 ples ; and, as the external construction of the Strigine birds certainly 

 renders this quite practicable, so, I believe, that the analogies thus 

 necessarily suggested to the student between them and the Falconidae, 

 would tend to the higher uses of the science. 



First species : C. Flavipes, yellow-footed Cultrunguis, Mihi. Head, 

 neck and body below, bright rusty, each plume striped down the 

 shaft with saturate brown ; the stripes narrower below than above : 

 disc and leg-plumes immaculate : back wings and tail, saturate 

 brown, transversely barred, and largely emarginated and tipt, with 

 rusty ; the bars interrupted on the shafts, and frequently resembling 

 triangular indentations : four bars across the great quills and tail 

 feathers ; and the tips of both largely paled : plumes of the thighs 

 and tarsi downy : half the latter nude : nude portion and the toes, 

 flavescent fleshy grey : talons horn yellow : bill blue, with a dusky tip : 

 iris bright yellow : edges of eye-lids black : twenty-two to twenty-three 

 inches long by 55 to 58 wide. Weight three and a half lbs. 



N. B. The sexes resemble each other both in size and colours. 



Second species : Cultrunguis Nigripes, Mihi. Head, neck, back, and 

 whole body below, pale earthy brown, with a fawn tinge ; paler and 

 albescent on the abdominal surface ; each plume striped down the 

 shaft with a saturate brown mark, which is narrower below than 

 above ; and each also crossed with numerous slender zigzags of 

 brownish fawn colour : wings and tail saturate brown, triangularly 

 indented or cross-barred, and broadly tipt, with obscure rufous yellow, 

 which is freckled, for the most part, on the tertiaries, and scapulars, 

 with brown : great quills and rectrices, quadricinctate, as in the preced- 

 ing : disc earthy brown : thighs pale fawn : both immaculate : throat 

 white, and almost or wholly unmarked : wings albescent towards the 

 roots of the feathers : bill dusky horn : iris bright yellow : edge of 

 eye-lid black : tarsi and toes, purpurescent dusky : talons the same, 

 with black points: thighs and knees to the front, covered with downy 

 plumes : tarsi and toes, nude : size of the last. 



