BURROWING OWL. 227 
figure will be the more acceptable to ornithologists, as it is the 
first which has been given of the burrowing owl: in the dis- 
tance we have introduced a view of the prairie-dog village. 
The peculiar subgenus of this bird has not hitherto been 
determined, owing to the neglect with which naturalists have 
treated the arrangement of extra-Huropean owls. Like all 
diurnal owls, our bird belongs to the subgenus Noctua of 
Savigny, having small oval openings to the ears, which are 
destitute of operculum, the facial disk of slender feathers, small 
and incomplete, and the outer edges of the primaries not re- 
curved ; but it differs from them in not having the tarsus and 
toes covered by long thick feathers. 
The burrowing owl is nine inches and a half long, and two 
feet in extent. The bill is horn colour, paler on the margin, 
and yellow on the ridges of both mandibles; the inferior man- 
dible is strongly notched on each side: the capistrum before 
the eyes terminates in black rigid bristles, as long as the bill: 
the irides are bright yellow. The general colour of the 
plumage is a light burnt-umber, spotted with whitish, paler 
on the head and upper part of the neck; the lower part of 
the breast and belly are whitish, the feathers of the former 
being banded with brown: the inferior tail-coverts are white 
immaculate. The wings are darker than the body, the feathers 
being much spotted and banded with whitish ; the primaries 
are five or six banded, each band being more or less widely 
interrupted near the shaft, and margined with blackish, which 
colour predominates towards the tip; the extreme tip is dull 
whitish ; the shafts are brown above and white beneath: the 
exterior primary is finely serrated, and equal in length to the 
fifth, the second and fourth being hardly shorter than the 
third, which is the longest. The tail is very short, slightly 
rounded, having its feathers of the same colour as the primaries, 
and, like them, five or six banded, but more purely white at 
tip. The feet are dusky, and remarkably granulated, extend- 
ing, when stretched backwards, an inch and a half beyond the 
tail; the tarsi are slender, much elongated, covered before and 
