154 
MR. J. H. GURNEY ON THE NEW ZEALAND OWL. 
III. 
THE NEW ZEALAND OWL 
(SCELOGLAUX ALB IF A CIES, GRAY) 
IN CAPTIVITY. 
By J. H. Gurney, F.L.S. 
Read 27tli January, 1896. 
In March, 1895, Sir Francis Boileau, who was visiting New Zealand, 
obtained from Mr. II. B. Coles, a taxidermist at Christchurch, 
through the intervention of Dr. Moorhouse, a living example 
(which afterwards proved to be a male) of the White-faced or 
Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux* albifacies, Gray) of that country, now 
said to be, for lack of its natural food, nearly extinct, together 
with a well-preserved skin and an egg of the same. 
This food was, in the opinion of Sir Walter Buller (‘ Birds of 
New Zealand,’ vol. i. p. 199) and Mr. R. J. Kingsley (Proc. New 
Zealand Institute, 1890, p. 1901 the “ kiori maori,” or native Rat; 
but Hutton thinks there is no proof that an indigenous Rat ever 
existed (Proc. New Zealand Institute, vol. v. p. 230), and so, for 
the present, the matter remains undecided between these authorities. 
• Meanwhile, the bird is admitted on all hands to be extremely 
rare and local. It probably became extinct long ago in the little 
Chatham Islands (Forbes, ‘Ibis,’ 1893, p. 544) and, if it quite dies 
out in New Zealand, there will be only the common ‘ Morepork ’ 
left there. The chance, therefore, of studying a living •, Sceloglaux , 
in England and enabling some competent anatomist to examine 
its internal structure afterwards, was one which might never happen 
again. 
* Sceloglaux, which my father puts at the commencement of the 
Si rigid <z and next to Scelostrix, was named Athene albifacies by G. It. Gray 
in 1844, and afterwards transferred by Dr. Kaup to his genus Ieroglaux 
(written at first liter ocoglaux) and subgenus Sceloglaux, where it remains, 
admitted on all hands to he a strongly differentiated, insular form, — a relic, 
perhaps, of a far-distant time when a giant bird of prey, Ilarpagornis, half 
as large again as the Golden Eagle, also inhabited New Zealand. 
