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Genus ATHENE. 



Stria; apud Scopoli, Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 22 (1769). 



Noctuct apud Savigny, Syst. Ois. de l'Egypte, p. 45 (1810). 



Athene, Boie, Tsis, 1822, p. 549. 



Carine apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 29 (1829). 



Surina apud Bonaparte, Oss. Regn. Anim. p. 48 (1830). 



Six species, which inhabit the Palaearctic, Ethiopian, and Oriental Regions, are ranged under 

 this genus, two of them being found in the Western Palsearctic Region. They are nocturnal in 

 their habits, and when seen about by day appear to be stupid and dazed by the light ; and if 

 then observed by small non-rapacious birds they are mobbed like other nocturnal Owls. They 

 frequent ruins, inhabited places, groves, gardens, &c, and feed on small birds and mammals, 

 reptiles, snails, slugs, and insects of various kinds, and are much prized by gardeners on account 

 of the good they do by destroying noxious insects, reptiles, mice, &c. They are said also to 

 catch maybugs on the wing with great dexterity. Their note consists of a dull smothered call 

 uttered whilst they are on the wing or seated. They nest in ruins, holes in rocks, hollow trees, 

 &c, not making any nest, but placing their roundish white eggs on the rubbish which accumu- 

 lates at the bottom of the hole. 



Athene noctua, the type of the genus, has the bill decurved from the base, the cere short 

 and swollen, the nostrils oval, concealed by stiff bristles, lower mandible sinuated ; facial disk 

 ill defined ; auditory conch large, the orifice small and without operculum ; head large, without 

 ear-tufts ; wings large, broad, the first quill about equal to the sixth, the third longest ; tail 

 moderate, square; legs long, covered with short feathers to the base of the toes, which are 

 covered with hairs ; claws strong, curved, acute. 



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