504 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — RAPTOBES — STPUGES. 
yielding to the great gray owl in stature, and to none in spirit, is a common inhabitant of 
North Am. at large, representing B. ignavus of Europe. It is non-migratory ; breeds in late 
winter, and early spring months (usually February or March), laying in hollows of trees or rifts 
of rocks, or in a bulky nest of sticks on the branches of tall trees, often appropriating that of 
a large hawk, as a Buteo. Eggs said to be 3-6, not known to me to be more than 2 in num- 
ber; colorless, subspherical, about 2.25 X 1-90 in size; duration of incubation said to be about 
three weeks. The young begin to hoot when about 4 months old. This owl preys upon 
birds and quadrupeds up to the size of domestic fowls and rabbits. It is habitually abroad in 
the daytime, apparently not at all inconvenienced by sunlight. Runs into the following vari- 
eties, which, however, are not as strictly geographical as the names would indicate : — 
463. B. V. arc'ticus. (Lat. arcticus, northern.) White Horned Owl. Very pale colored, fre- 
quently quite whitish, and not distantly resembling the snowy owl. (See Swainson's fig. in 
F. B. A., pi. 80.) Boreal and alpine North Am. ; such specimens occasional in Northern 
U. S. in winter, and Rocky Mt. region. 
464. B. V. paci'ficus. (Lat. pacificus, of the Pacific ocean. ) Dusky Horned Owl. Very dark 
colored, chiefly blackish and grayish, with little or no tawny. Apparently a littoral phase, sup- 
posed to be more particularly de- 
veloped on the Pacific coast ; but 
the extreme of this style, in which 
the tawny is extinct, and which 
has been called B. satiiratus, is 
from Labrador, where also occur 
the darkest specimens of Gyr- 
falcons. 
162 SCOPS. (Gr. (rKU)y\r, Lat. scops, a 
kind of owl. Fig. 354.) Little 
Horned Owls. Screech Owls. 
Like a miniature Buho in form 
(all our species under a foot long). 
Skull and ear-parts symmetrical ; 
latter small, simply elliptical, with 
rudimentary operculum ; facial 
disc moderately developed; plumi- 
corns evident ; nostrils at edge of 
the cere, which is not inflated, 
and shorter than the rest of the 
culmen. Wings rounded, but 
long, about twice the length of 
the short rounded tail, about to 
the end of which they fold ; in 
our species the 4th and 5th primaries longest, the 1st quite short ; 3 or 4 outer primaries 
sinuate or emarginate on inner webs. Tarsus feathered (in our species), but toes only partly 
bristly (in the S. asio group) or quite naked (as in S. flammeola). Plumage dichromatic 
in some cases ; i. e., some individuals of the same species normally mottled gray, while others 
are reddish, the two phases very distinct when fully developed, but shading insensibly into 
each other, and entirely independent of age, season, or sex. In normal plumage, a white or 
w^hitish scapular stripe; lower parts with lengthwise blotches or shaft-lines and crosswise 
bars or waves of blackish or dark color ; upper parts with black or blackish shaft-lines on a 
finely-dappled brown or gray ground (more or less obliterated in the red phase) ; facial disc 
black-bordered nearly all around; wing-quills spotted or marbled on outer webs, barred on 
Fig. 354. — Screech Owl, reduced. (From Dall.) 
t 
