126 LEAST EUROPEAN SPARROW OWL. 
bird not known in Europe, and named, as Mr. Newton 
suggests, after its habitat Acadie, that is, Nova Scotia. 
I think then I have good reason for restormg Daudin’s 
name, while at the same time I fully admit the priority 
of Linneus, and regret the necessity which the erroneous 
designation of previous writers has forced upon me. 
There are several “Little Owls” which may, more or 
less, be confounded with each other. I will briefly 
notice some of these, so that the ground may be cleared, 
I trust, of all obscurity or doubt:— 
S. pusilla—The subject of the present notice, and 
the synonymy of which I have given at length above. 
The S. passerina of Linneus. 
S. pstlodactyla of Linneus, Brehm, and Degland; the 
S. passerina of Gmelin, Latham, Meyer, Wolff, Tem- 
minck, Vieillot, Schinz, and the English authors. S. 
noctua of Retzius and Schlegel. Noctua passerina of 
Cuvier, and the Athene noctua of Gray. ‘This bird, the 
Little Owl of the English lists, is readily distinguished 
from S. pusilla by its greater size, shorter tail, different 
disposition of colours, and by the shortness of the 
feathers on the tarsi, and the substitution of down for 
feathers on the toes. It is figured by Edwards, Lewin, 
Gould, Yarrell, and others. It is fully one-third larger 
than Puszlla. 
S. acadica of Gmelin, and S. acadiensis of Latham. 
A North American species, well figured by Wilson in 
his “American Birds,” and afterwards by Audubon, 
pl. 199. ° Figured also by Latham in his “General 
Synopsis,” vol. i. pl. 5, fig. i1.; and described at 
length by Swainson, in the “Fauna Boreali Americana,” 
Birds, p. 97, in which its distinction from any of the 
European species is clearly established. This is the 
Nyctale acadica of Bonaparte, and of Gray’s list; it 
