STRIGIDiE. 95 



above remark on its affinity. When it accidentally wanders abroad in the day, 

 it is so much dazzled by the light of the sun as to become stupid, and it may then 

 be easily caught by the hand. Its cry in the night is a single melancholy note, 

 repeated at intervals of a minute or two ; and it is one of the superstitious prac- 

 tices of the Indians to whistle when they hear it. If the bird is silent when thus 

 challenged, the speedy death of the inquirer is augured ; hence its Cree appella- 

 tion of Death-bird. Mr. Hutchins informs us that it builds a nest of grass half 

 way up a pine-tree, and lays two eggs in the month of May. It feeds on 

 mice and beetles. I cannot state the extent of its range, but believe that it in- 

 habits all the woody country from Great Slave Lake to the United States. On the 

 banks of the Saskatchewan it is so common that its voice is heard almost every 

 night by the traveller wherever he selects his bivouack. The Countess of 

 Dalhousie sent a fine specimen from Canada to the Edinburgh Museum. — R. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a specimen killed at Carlton House, in the end of May. 



Colour. — Bill whitish on the ridge and at the tip ; dark-coloured on the sides. Facial 

 circle blackish immediately round the orbit and at the base of the bill ; the rest of it white, 

 with an intermixture of black shafts and barbs towards its posterior margin. The belt of 

 velvety feathers on the posterior border of the concha is blackish-brown, with a few white 

 spots : there is a greater intermixture of white where the band unites with its fellow under the 

 throat. The ground colour of the whole dorsal aspect is an uniform tint of liver-brown. On 

 the forehead this is thickly dotted with round white spots, one only, in general, on each feather 

 near its tip ; but, in a few, there is an indication of a pair of spots lower down *. The spots 

 on the occiput are more distant, and they are considerably larger on the back of the neck 

 and between the shoulders, each spot occupying the middle of a feather, and not extending 

 either to the tip or lateral margins. There are only two or three of these spots on the back ; but 

 there are a good many on the scapularies, particularly on their inner webs, where they resemble 

 those on the neck in size and number. There are a few distant round spots, of the size of a 

 pea, on the lesser wing coverts. The primary coverts are unspotted, unless on their inner 

 webs. The primaries have four or five semi-orbicular spots on the margin of their outer 

 webs, and as many oblong larger spots extending to near the margins of their inner ones. 

 The outer spots of the two first primaries are nearly obsolete. The secondaries have only two 

 spots on their outer webs, but generally about five on their inner ones. The tail, -of similar 

 colour to the rest of the dorsal surface, is crossed by five narrow interrupted white bands. The 

 white spots forming these bands do not reach the shafts of any of the feathers, and the last 

 band is a quarter of an inch distant from the end of the tail. 



* This distinguishes it from Strix Acadica, in which the white forms linear streaks along the shafts of the feathers 

 of the head ; and it is on account of this mark that we have referred the Strix passerina of Forster to the S. Teng- 

 malmi. Linnajus, in Fauna Suecica, terms our Strix Tengmalmi, Strix funerea. 



