1846.] or Little Known Species of Birds. 9 



This little Owl is certainly an Ephialtes (vel Scops, Auct., though it 

 appears this latter name was first appropriated to the Crowned Cranes), 

 and probably a young bird, from the loose and floccose character of its 

 plumage ; but the aigrettes are not easily made out in the only speci- 

 men examined, though I believe that I have distinctly traced them. Its 

 size is that of Eph. lettia, but the bill, feet, and talons, are considerably 

 smaller. Length about nine inches, of wing six, and tail three and a 

 quarter; bill, in greatest vertical depth, seven- sixteenths of an inch; 

 feathered tarse an inch and one-eighth ; length of middle toe and claw 

 but an inch, the claws slender, delicate, and of a whitish hue ; beak pale 

 yellowish, or yellowish- white. The plumage of the head is very full 

 and puffy, the feathers loose and light ; each of them having two 

 pale-coloured spots, set off with blackish, and the rest of the feather 

 a dull light bay or tawney, a little pencilled : facial disk fulvescent. 

 Upper-parts uniform dull tawney, pencilled with blackish; and the ordi- 

 nary white spots occur on the outer scapularies : the primaries have also 

 a series of three white bands on the unemarginated portion of their 

 outer webs (the emargination being very slight) : the secondaries and 

 tertiaries are principally bay on their outer webs, w r ith imperfect blackish 

 bands ; and the tail is barred with the same colours in about equal 

 proportions, the central feathers having six tawney-rufous bands. Under- 

 parts paler than those above, minutely speckled with dusky, and 

 with some larger whitish spots set off with blackish : lower tail- coverts 

 white, a little barred, except the longest which are distinctly so ; the 

 tarsal plumes tawney-rufous, with dusky bars. From Darjeeling.* 



Syrnium nivicolum, Hodgson, XIV, 185. Since describing this species, 

 I have seen several fine specimens. One, from near Simla, presented by 

 L. C. Stewart, Esq., now of H. M. 50th Ft., has the wing twelve inches 

 and a half: colour dusky above, mottled with larger spots of fulvous- 

 white than in that formerly described ; but the under- parts are much 

 the same. Two males and a female, the former with wing eleven inches, 



* In the ' Madras Journal,' No. XXXI, 120, Mr. Jerdon describes a Scops 

 (Ephialtes ) griseus, which = lettioides, Jerdon, nobis, J. A. S. XIV, 182. Dr. 

 Stewart has recently favored the Society with a specimen, from near Futtehpore, 

 on the route from Allahabad to Cawnpore, which tends to indicate the specifical iden- 

 tity of Eph. lettia and Eph. lettioides. 



c 



