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S. malayanus, and resembling it in the dusky grey ear-coverts, but distinguished by the absence 

 of the white ocellations on the hind neck, and of the bars on the centre tail-feathers, and more 

 especially by its rufous quills." It inhabits the eastern Ghauts, India. 



Scops brucii (Hume, Str. Feathers, i. p. 8). Of this form Mr. Sharpe has examined the type, 

 which he speaks of as being merely a race of S. giu, but quite peculiar in general coloration, 

 being very uniform ochraceous grey. 



Several of the above subspecies appear to me to be scarcely separable, even as subspecies, 

 from Scops giu; but as Mr. Sharpe has had much more ample opportunities of studying this 

 group than I have, I have deemed it best to follow his view. Still I think that, if ever a larger 

 series of all the above forms be collected and compared, they will all be united under the name 

 of Scops giu. 



In habits the present species is by no means strictly nocturnal ; for I have not unfrequently 

 seen it in Spain flying about during the brightest portion of a hot summer's day, apparently 

 undazed by the bright sunshine. It frequents the groves and evergreen-woods, not, so far as my 

 experience goes, the dense forests, but places where large trees are scattered about, and the 

 spaces between are filled up with a tolerably thick undergrowth of brambles and low bushes. It 

 breeds, so far as I can ascertain, invariably in hollow trees, and scarcely ever, like the Little Owl, 

 in old ruins or the clefts of rocks. Seidensacher informed me that near Cilli it usually breeds in 

 the holes of trees, sometimes high up, and at others close to the ground, but that he has occa- 

 sionally found its eggs in old nests in conifer trees. It takes possession of its nesting-place some 

 time before the eggs are deposited, and sits very close when it has eggs, so much so that it may 

 usually be caught in the nest-hole. In its flight it much resembles the Little Owl ; but when 

 perched it is a much thinner-looking bird, and may easily be distinguished. It feeds chiefly on 

 insects of various kinds, but is said to occasionally catch and eat small birds and mammals. 

 Lord Lilford states that one he kept alive at Corfu for some months fed, by preference, on the 

 humming-bird moth, which abounds in the island in August and September. He also mentions 

 a curious superstition respecting this species: "I was gravely assured by a Spanish lady," he 

 says, " that this species and the Barn-Owl enter the chapels and churches in Andalucia to 

 drink the oil in the lamps which are kept burning in the shrines of the saints, and that it 

 behoved all good Christians to slay them whenever they found them, adding, ' Son las gallinas 

 del demonio, Sehor.' " Mr. H. Seebohm, who has had opportunities of observing the present 

 species in Greece and Asia Minor, sends me the following note: — "Scops giu is not a very 

 uncommon bird in Greece and Asia Minor; but it is one which is very rarely seen. Athene 

 noctua is often seen in the daytime ; but Scops giu seems more especially to be a nocturnal bird. 

 I never once met with it on the wing ; but I have often listened to its monotonous note, as 

 monotonous as a passing-bell, and almost as melancholy. To my ears this note is exactly 

 represented by the sound of the syllable ahp, repeated in an unvarying and desponding tone 

 every ten or twenty seconds. This bird is generally, if sparingly, distributed all over the 

 country, from the sea-shore almost, if not quite, up to the pine-regions on the mountains. I 

 have often listened to its note as I lay in my camp-bed in a peasant's cottage at Agoriane, half- 

 way up the Parnassus, when it was almost too cold to sleep with comfort ; and I have heard it 

 from the hotel at Buyukdere, on the Bosphorus, when, with window wide open, the heat made it 



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