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length of flax to permit of the Owl moving freely about over the ground. On his return by 

 the same road two days later he found that the bird had snapped, or in some way had got 

 disengaged from, the flax string, and was perched on the top of the pole, permitting itself to 

 be recaptured without the slightest resistance. He took it on with him to Nelson, and, 

 not knowing its value, sold it to the narrator for a few shillings. It now graces the collection 

 in the Nelson Museum. 



There is a specially fine male bird in my collection, obtained through Mr. W. Smyth, 

 of Caversham. It was purchased from a settler, who procured it in the Blue Skin District, 

 Otago, in May, 1874. 



The two specimens of Bceloglaux albifacies in the Otago Museum ( <$ and ? ) are similarly 

 marked on the primaries, with spots (not transverse bars) on the outer web ; and both have 

 very conspicuous ocellated yellowish-white markings on the scapulars. The fine example of 

 the female in the Canterbury Museum, of which mention has already been made, has the 

 general plumage dark chocolate-brown, the feathers being more or less broadly margined with 

 fulvous-brown. The scapulars are varied with large, irregular spots of yellowish white ; the 

 primaries are blackish brown with paler tips, and exhibit four widely separated yellowish- 

 fulvous spots on their outer vane ; the secondaries paler brown, the outer web similarly 

 marked but with larger and more conspicuous spots, having the appearance of bars. The 

 feathers of the under parts are of a warm chocolate-brown with a broad, club-shaped centre 

 of blackish brown. The wing from the flexure to the tip measures 11 inches, and the tail 

 5 inches. The tail-feathers are of the same blackish-brown colour as the primaries, with four 

 very indistinct transverse bars of whitish fulvous. The tarsi are thickly feathered and of a 

 light tawny colour; toes covered with long white hairs or bristles of a shiny character. Bill 

 yellowish brown; claws dark brown. The feathers on the lower forehead, forming the rictal 

 crest, are very narrow or lanceolate, with black shaft lines ; and the stiff bristles surrounding 

 the bill are black. 



The two specimens described above have very conspicuous facial discs of white, justifying 

 Mr. Gray's name for the species. Another, which I saw in a private collection at Dunedin, 

 has a still greater extent of white on the face and cheeks. 



In March, 1895, Sir Francis Boileau obtained a live one (which afterwards proved to be 

 a male) from a taxidermist in Christchurch, and brought it to England with him. This bird 

 in captivity afforded Mr. J. H. Ourney materials for an interesting article in the ' Transactions ' 

 of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society (vol. vi., pp. 154-8). In the course of his paper 

 he says : — 



The Sceloglaux in captivity at Ketteringham was tame, but not tame enough to eat comfortably when 

 anyone was by ; but he had an appetite almost too good for a captive, and ejected the feathered portions 

 of his meals in the customary pellets. With two toes on either side of the perch he sat contented enough 

 in the darkest corner, where his flat-crowned and rather square-shaped head, and prominent black eyes, 

 watched with Minerva's wisdom for what was coming ; viewing visitors with apathy, but the approach 



of a dog with some perturbation He was in good health when he arrived in Norfolk, but felt 



the cold of an English November very much, though in his own country said to brave the icy blasts of 

 snow storms— crouching in a corner, although the cage was in a conservatory, and on November 9th, died, 

 but not from want of food, as he was, 'if anything, too fat. 



Mr. W. W. Smith, of Ashburton, to whom, as already recorded, I have been indebted for 

 some beautiful examples of this rare Owl, writing to me in August, 1903, says: — 



I fear our old and genial friend, Sceloglaux albifacies, is now almost extinct in Canterbury. My last 

 visit to Albury, on the Tengawai Kiver, resulted in a long and unsuccessful search for specimens. Although 



