OWL. 327 



25.— SIBERIAN EARED OWL.— Pl. XIV. F. 1. 



Strix pulchella, Ind. Orn.\. p. 57. Gm. Lin. i. p. 290, Pall. It. p. 456. Lepech. 



It. ii. t. 4. Daud. ii. 220. Shaw's Zool. vli. 239. 

 Strix aurita, e gente sua minima, TV. C. Petr. xv. 490. t. 26, f. i. 

 Siberian eared Owl, Gen.Syn.'u 130. pl. 5. f.i. Nat. Misc. \. pl. 22, 



THIS species well deserves the name applied to it, as it is a 

 most beautifully pencilled bird; length 6in.* The head is less 

 tumid than in the Passerine, or Little Owl, smaller in proportion, 

 and has remarkably large ear tufts. The bill is brown ; irides pale 

 yellow ; the eared feathers above an inch in length ; feathery circle 

 round the eyes small, and above the eyes scarcely perceivable ; 

 towards the eyes a white spot; the body is cinereous above, delicately 

 powdered and undulated, the shaft of each feather brown ; beneath 

 whitish, with broad, black shafts, and scattered here and there ^vith 

 elegant variegated bars of the same; wings fasciated and powdered ; 

 the first prime quill sen'ated outwardly, some of them spotted white 

 on the outer edge ; the tail and wings of equal length ; the former 

 rounded at the end, coloured like the body, and obsoletely 

 fasciated with white, shins feathered, and marked with undulated 

 striae ; toes alone naked, and pale. 



So far from Dr. Pallas. One of these, in the Leverian Museum, 

 was only six inches in length ; the plumage very soft and delicate, 

 imitating that of the Wryneck, and delicately powdered, as Pallas 

 expresses it to be, with ferruginous and black, but about the sides 

 of the neck the whole has a feri'uginous tinge; tail dark brown, 

 barred with ferruginous and grey ; the ears consist of several feathers, 

 and the wings a trifle longer than the tail, but as the specimen was 



* In the Petersburgh Transactions it is said to be nine inches. 



