BIOEOGIA CENTRALI-AMERICANA. 



ZOOLOGIA. 



Class AVES. 

 Subclass AVES CARINAT.E. 



Order STRIGES. 



The Striges, or Owls, form an isolated group of birds which may be readily recognized. 

 Mainly, no doubt, on account of the shape of the bill and claws, the Striges have been 

 associated with the Accipitres as a suborder of Kaptores, and there are other characters 

 to justiiy this arrangement. In this work we follow, to a great extent, the system 

 of the ' Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium,' and there the Striges stand as a separate 

 order next to the Accipitres. In the internal arrangement of the order we adhere to 

 the scheme prepared by Sclater and Salvin for the ' Nomenclator,' and published 

 by the former author in 'The Ibis' for 1879 (p. 351). 



This order is readily divisible into two families, viz. Strigidse, represented in 

 America by the genus Strix, and Asionidse by the rest of the Owls. 



Pam. STRIGIDiEi. 



Sterni crista dilatata, furoulam summam attingente ; flssuris stemi posticis nullis. 



The only genus besides Strix belonging to this family is Phodilus, containing 

 a single species, P. hadius, found in the Eastern Himalayas, Ceylon, and thence 

 eastwards to Borneo and Java. 



STEIX. 



Strios, LimiEeuSj Syst. Nat. i. p. 131 (partim) ; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. ii. p. 290. 



The range of the genus Strix is nearly worldwide, and only in the colder regions of 

 the north, the islands of Oceania and New Zealand and some of those of the Malay 

 Archipelago, are no species of White Owls found. 



Admitting the Old- World forms S. novoe-hollandioe, S. tenebricosa, S. capensis, and 

 BIOL. CENTR.-AMBE., Aves, Vol. III., Novcmher 1897. 1 



