


NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. osr 
NOTES ON THE RED AND MOTTLED OwLs.—In a note to the very in- 
teresting paper of Mr. C. J. Maynard, on The Mottled Owl in Confinement, 
g of S. asio are sometimes gray in color and sometimes red, as 
remaining still undecided. As there is hardly a more interesting or more 
singular problem in the history of our birds, a brief history of the ques- 
tion, and a short recapitulation of the knowledge we possess on the sub- 
ject may not be uninteresting. 
The Red Owl was described by Linnæus, in the Systema Naturæ, vol. 1, 
p. 182, in 1766, under the name Strix asio. Gmelin, twenty-two years later, 
described (Systema Nature, vol. 1, p. 289) the Mottled Owl as Strix nevia. 
In 1812, Alexander Wilson, in the fifth volume of his admirable, and in 
many respects yet 1 American Ornithology, redescribes the two, 
i t till 1828 does it 

Under the same names, also as distinct species; an 
tht the color of both old and young is variable and uncertain, or that 
they are Specifically distinct.” The latter opinion he adopts, ignoring the 
e known case of different colors in the young and parent in Dr. 
ry positively concluding there are two species, and that 
right. 
in a R. Hoy, in his valuable Notes of the Birds of Wisconsin, pores 
“Senay the Proceedings (vol. 6) of the Philadelphia Academy of — 
that the gives them as two species, remarking he is * yet sa 
* ottled and Red Owls are specifically the same.” He says, under 
Were “sto, “In the month of June I caught four young ones just as a 
ere about leaving the nest. They were of a deep reddish-brown, in 
Sets Similar to the female which I shot at the same time, and have 
* Journal tho T. me 

int 1 History, Vol. II, p. 126. 
© y OL Natura 
