186 Notices and Descriptions of various new [No. 159. 



cent, with deeper tawney spots ; alars and tail banded, the latter with 

 mottled light brown upon a dark ground." The second specimen (also 

 Himalayan) has the wing twelve inches and a quarter long, and the 

 tail seven and a half. It agrees generally with the foregoing descrip- 

 tion, but has less of the fulvous tinge, and is, I think, more obviously 

 distinct from S. aluco. The minute mottling of the plumage is diffi- 

 cult to express in words : but the feathers of the under parts may be 

 described as whitish, partially tinged with fulvescent, and having a 

 dusky central streak, broader towards the tip of the feather, and three 

 or four narrower transverse streaks of the same ; and the like may 

 be described as the basis of the markings of those above, modified so 

 that the pale portion appears, more or less, as a series of pale spots on 

 the two webs of each feather ; — the well developed transverse markings 

 of the feathers constituting a good distinction of this bird from the Eu- 

 ropean S. aluco, independently of its deficiency of rufous colouring. The 

 form is perfectly true to the generic type of <S. aluco. 



Of the species of Strix, as now limited, three pertain to the Fauna 

 Indica. 



1. Str. javanica, Gm., de Wurmb, apud Latham: Str. Candida, 

 Tickell, J. A. 5. n. 572 ; Str. longimembris, Jerdon. Buchanan fi- 

 gured it ; but Latham is wrong in stating that the claw of its middle 

 toe is not serrated ; and it has also four well defined blackish bars on 

 the tail. Found chiefly in peninsular India. Whether it be truly de 

 Wurmb's Javanese species, I have no immediate means of ascer- 

 taining*. 



2. Str. flammea^ Lin. : Str. javanica, apud Horsfield ( ? ), Sykes, and 

 Jerdon. Very common, and differing in no respect from the British 

 bird. 



3. Str. badia, Horsfield. Mr. Hodgson obtained a single mutilated 

 specimen of this bird in Nepal ; and the Society has been favored with 

 a very fine one by Captain Abbott, shot in the island of Ramree, 

 Arracan. About Malacca and Singapore, it would seem to be not un- 

 common. 



* " Horsfield's Strix javanica" writes Mr. Strickland, " has the tarsi five-eighths 

 of an inch longer than in a British Str. Jiammea. It comes near longimembris, 

 Jerdon, but is mottled grey above, instead of blotched with brown." Dr. A. Smith 

 has figured a species from South Africa, allied to true javanica (? v, longimembris J, 

 by the name M. capensis. 



