128 stkigidjE. 



RAPTORES. STRIGID^E. 



PLATE XXVI. 



TAWNY OWL. 



Ulula Stridula. 



The Tawny Owl is about sixteen, or seventeen inches in 

 length, and from thirty-nine to forty inches in expanse ; its 

 tail measures between seven and eight inches in length, and 

 the wings when closed reach nearly to the end of it. The 

 feathering of this bird is very loose and puffy ; the head and 

 neck are thick, almost equal in size to the body ; its face is 

 large and nearly round ; the eyes are particularly large ; the 

 exterior opening of the ears is of moderate dimensions, oval 

 in form, and barely half as high as the cranium. The first 

 quill-feathers are serrated on their cuter edges, and the fourth 

 and fifth are the longest in the wing. 



The beak of the Tawny Owl is proportionately large, much 

 hooked, measuring from an inch and a half to an inch and 

 five-eighths in the arc from the forehead to the tip, and not 

 toothed ; it is pale horn colour : the cere which covers the 

 rounded nostrils is greenish. Its eyes are very dark brown, 

 the pupil blue black, having an opaque appearance ; the 

 eye-lids are dingy flesh-coloured ; in the young, reddish grey. 



The legs are rather short, and almost entirely covered with 

 woolly feathers ; the soles of the feet are naked, and rough 

 or warty in substance, and dirty yellow in colour ; the claws 

 are tolerably large, pointed, but not much bent, horn coloured, 

 with black tips. The tarsus measures two inches in length, 



