79 



STRIX NEWTONI NOM. NOV. 



Strix sp. Newton and Gadow, Trans. Zool. Soc. XIII, p. 287 (1893). 



MESSRS. NEWTON AND GADOW give the measurements of, and 

 describe a pair of metatarsi procured with the remains described as 

 Strix sauzieri, and state that they do not fit in with that species. For, 

 as they are fully adult bones, it is impossible to attribute their much smaller size 

 to youth. They then add a sentence of which this is the first part: "Unless we 

 assume, what is unlikely, that the Island of Mauritius possessed two different 

 species of Strix, we have to conclude that the short pair of metatarsals 



belonged to a small individual of Strix sauzieri, ." Evidently Messrs. 



Gadow and Newton, when they wrote this, did not remember the fact that 

 throughout a very large portion of the range of Strix flammea, its various 

 geographical races are found side by side with another species of the group 

 of Strix, namely, S. Candida and S. capensis, popularly called " Grass owls " ; 

 these in nearly every case have the legs considerably longer than in the true 

 " Barn Owls' 1 (Strix flammea and its races). 



Therefore I consider it not in the least unlikely that two species of 

 Strix inhabited Mauritius, and that Strix sauzieri was the Mauritian 

 representative of the " Grass Owls," while these two short metatarsals 

 belonged to the representative of the " Barn Owls." I therefore have much 

 pleasure in naming this form after the collector of these bones, the late 

 Sir Edward Newton. 



Length of tarso-metatarsi, 56 mm. 

 Habitat : Mauritius. 



