STRIGIDiE. 



71 



STRIGIDyE.— OWLS. 



If our imperfect knowledge of the groups among the Falconidce debars us from 

 the power of discriminating the genera from the sub-genera, and even prevents us 

 from understanding the properties of the primary groups, still more deficient are 

 we in those data upon which, as we conceive, an insight into the natural arrange- 

 ment of the Strigidce may be acquired. As a whole, they present an assemblage 

 of birds as united among themselves as they are distinct from all others. There is, 

 we believe, no one species yet discovered which even a common observer would 

 not immediately pronounce to be an Owl, or would be in danger of confounding 

 either with a Hawk or Goatsucker, the only two groups to which the Strigidae are 

 related in immediate affinity. Yet, although this relationship is too obvious to be 

 doubted, it must be confessed that a considerable hiatus intervenes between both. 

 Whether these will be lessened by future discoveries, or whether the Owls, like 

 the Parrots, are in some degree an isolated group, whose aberrant forms no longer 

 exist, are points which may always remain in obscurity. 



To state our objections against the attempts that have been made to arrange 

 the modern genera of Strigidae in a circular series, without at the same time offer- 

 ing a disposition more agreeable to nature, would be useless. It is obvious 

 that, until the first principles of their affinities have been studied, we shall be 

 building without a foundation. The extraordinary development and construc- 

 tion of the ear, by which the Owls are so strikingly distinguished from all other 

 birds, is clearly that feature to which we should first direct our attention ; and a 

 correct knowledge of this organ, in its variations of structure through the sub- 

 ordinate groups, should precede all attempts at general combination. How much 

 this has been neglected is well known. " We cannot sufficiently regret," observes 

 the able continuator of Wilson, (i that authors should be so unanimous in 

 neglecting this important character of the ears in Owls." (Bon., Syn., p. 436.) 

 With this acknowledged fact before us, with the insignificant number of species 

 for consultation to be found in our museums, and with the artificial combinations 

 that have resulted from relying upon books and prints, rather than upon personal 

 observation, we consider all attempts to combine the modern groups among the 

 Strigidae into a circular series, as somewhat speculative, and certainly not war- 

 ranted by any evidence that has yet been brought forward on the subject. — Sw. 



