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Genus GLAUCIDIUM. 



Strix apud Linnseus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 133 (1766). 



Glaucidium, Boie, Isis, 1826, p. 976. 



Surnia apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. xxxii (1840). 



Athene apud G. R. Gray, Gen. of B. i. p. 35 (1845). 



Macroptynx apud Kaup, Contrib. Orn. 1852, p. 107. 



Noctua apud Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 2, p. 63. 



The genus Glaucidium contains, according to Mr. Sharpe, twenty species, which inhabit the 

 Palagarctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Nearctic, and Neotropical Regions, one species only being 

 found in the Western Palsearctic Region. These birds are by no means timid or shy ; on the 

 contrary, they are fearless, and for their size strong and rapacious, frequently striking birds 

 larger than themselves. They are, as a rule, nocturnal in their habits, hunting after their prey 

 chiefly in the early morning and late in the evening ; but they may sometimes be seen about 

 during the daytime. They feed on mice, lemmings, small birds, and large insects, such as 

 moths, grasshoppers, &c. Their call-note is a tolerably loud and clear whistling cry, which may 

 generally be heard in the evening and morning. They nest in hollow trees, not constructing 

 any nest, but placing their small roundish white eggs on the bottom of the hole without any 

 thing under them to form a couch. 



Glaucidium passerinum, the type of the genus, has the bill rather large, stout, decurved 

 from the base, lower mandible notched ; nostrils small, round, concealed by stiff feathers ; facial 

 disk obsolete ; head flat without tufts ; wings short, broad, the first quill much shorter than the 

 secondaries, the latter long, second shorter than the fifth, the third, fourth, and fifth nearly 

 equal, the fourth longest ; tail long, even ; feet closely feathered ; claws long, slender, curved, 

 acute. 



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