﻿CIRCLE OF THE OWLS. 



331 



Richardson, an eye-witness of the habits of the species 

 just mentioned, remarks that in the bleak territory of 

 Hudson's Bay, where it is very common, it is more fre- 

 quently killed by the hunters than any other, from its 

 boldness, and its habit of flying about by day. When the 

 hunters are shooting grouse, this bird is occasionally at- 

 tracted by the report of the gun, and is often bold enough, 

 on a bird being killed, to pounce down upon it, though it 

 may be unable, from its size, to carry it off. It is also 

 known to hover round the fires made by the natives at 

 night.* The African hawk owl, Surnia Africana, is 

 probably another species, for it has all the aspect of the 

 last. But the great ural owl, if truly represented in 

 Temminck's figure (PI. Col. 27-)j> has a very large 

 facial disk and long cuneated tail, precisely agreeing 

 with the sub-genus Scotiapteoc : so that the very error 

 of its classification with the two former is a collateral 

 proof that the series we have now traced is natural. 



(266.) Upon condensing the foregoing remarks, and 

 divesting them of scientific technicalities, we find a 

 gradual progression from the great-eared to the horned 

 owls, by such birds as S. bracheotus and otus, which 

 unite in themselves the characters of the two genera 

 Strioc axid Asio. The diurnal flight of the Heliaptex 

 articus, and its whole appearance, show that the great 

 white owl follows next. The little passerine owls of the 

 tropics, with the burrowing species of America, which is 

 probably the grallatorial type, form the genus Nycti- 

 petes, and are obviously intermediate between the white 

 or eagle and the hawk owls. These latter, it will be 

 remembered, have unusually long tails, but no facial 

 disk ; and Scotiapteoc possesses the first, but not the 

 second, of these characters. The long-tailed owls are 

 thus brought together ; at the same time that no affinity 

 in the series is deranged or interrupted. M. Cuvier, by 

 not following up his own theory on the structure of the 

 ear, places the ural and the hawk owl in the same 

 genus ; thus confessing their similarity, and showing 



* Northern Zoology, ii. p. 92. 



