138 • LONG-EARED OWL. 



as well as birds of various species; its stomach having been found by me 

 crammed with feathers and other remains of the latter. 



There is a marked difference between the sexes. The males are not only 

 smaller than the females, but darker; and this has tempted me to consider 

 the Strife Mexicanus of Mr. Swainson and the Prince of Musignano as 

 merely a large female of our Long-eared Owl. 



Long-eared Owl, Strix otus, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. vi. p. 52. 

 Strix Otus, Bonap. Syn., p. 37. 



Long-eared Owl, Strix otus, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 130. 

 Long-eared Owl, Strix otus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 573. 



Tufts elongated; general colour of plumage buff, mottled and spotted with 

 brown and greyish-white; dirty whitish anteriorly, with the tips black; pos- 

 teriorly reddish-white; ruff mottled with red and black; upper part of head 

 minutely mottled with whitish, brownish-black, and light red; the tufts light 

 reddish toward the base, brownish-black in the centre toward the end, the 

 inner edge white, dotted with dark brown; upper parts buff, variegated with 

 brown and whitish-grey, minutely mottled or undulatingly barred; first row 

 of coverts tipped with white; quills and scapulars pale grey, barred with dark 

 brown; the primaries buff toward the base externally. Tail with ten bars on 

 the middle and eight on the outer feathers; lower parts with more buff and 

 fewer spots than the upper; each feather with a long dark brown streak, and 

 several irregular transverse bars; legs and toes pure buff. 



Male, 14^, 38. Female, 16, 40. 



A male sent in spirits from Boston by Dr. Brewer: — The roof of the 

 mouth is flat, with two longitudinal ridges, the sides ascending; the posterior 

 aperture of the nares oblong, 4 twelfths long, with an anterior fissure. The 

 tongue is 7-^- twelfths long, deeply emarginate and papillate at the base, 

 flattish above, with a faint median groove, the sides parallel, the tip narrowed 

 and emarginate. The mouth is very wide, measuring 1 inch and 1^ twelfths. 

 The oesophagus is 5h inches long, of nearly uniform diameter throughout, as 

 in all other Owls, its breadth being 1 inch. The proventricular glandules 

 form a belt 9 twelfths in diameter. The stomach is large, round, 1 inch 9 

 twelfths long, 1 inch 7 twelfths broad, its walls thin, its muscular coat com- 

 posed of rather coarse fasciculi, but without distinction into lateral muscles; 

 the tendinous spaces circular, and about 8 twelfths in diameter; its epithelium 

 soft and rugous. The duodenum is 3 twelfths in diameter, and curves at the 

 distance of 3 inches from the pylorus. The intestine is 23 inches long, its 

 smallest diameter only 1 twelfth. The cceca, Fig. 2, are in this individual 

 unequal, as they very frequently are in Owls; the largest being 2 inches 10 



