LEAST EUROPEAN SPARROW OWL. 125 



La Chevechette, Le Vaillant; Ois: d' Afrique, 



pi. 46. 

 Petite Chouette a" Uplande, 



and Chouette d' Acadie, Of the French. 

 Gemeiner SjperlingsJcauz, Of the Germans. 



Specific Characters. — Upper part of body greyish brown, punc- 

 tured with white spots. Inferior parts whitish, with longitudinal 

 brown markings. Tail feathers marked with four or five large 

 white spots on the inner barb, smaller on the outer, forming in 

 the male four white bands, and in the female three. The smallest 

 of European Owls. Length, male six inches, female about seven 

 inches. 



It is not without considerable hesitation that I have 

 applied Daudin's name to designate this bird, which is 

 the true S. passerina of Linnasus. By the rule of 

 priority, the name given to it by the distinguished 

 naturalist by whom it was first described, ought to be 

 retained. But this rule, like all others, is open to 

 an exception, and my excuse for breaking it in the 

 present case, is, I think, a sound one. All the English 

 ornithological writers, with the exception of Mr. 

 Gould, who adopted Nilsson's name S. nudipes, have 

 applied Linnseus's designation to a closely allied but 

 totally different species, the S. psilodactyla of Linnaeus, 

 the Athene noctua of modern authors, a bird in the 

 British lists, so well described and figured as the 

 Little Owl by Yarrell. Much confusion must necessarily 

 result among English students, by having two birds at 

 sight similar to each other designated by the same 

 name. 



Temminck adopted Latham's name, S. acadica, to 

 designate this bird; but it is quite certain that the S. 

 acadica of Latham is the North American species, a 



