OWI-S. 
•245 
have not yet been properly ascertained or charac- 
terized. The Long-eared Owl is the same in 
Africa ;* also in North America. The Short- 
eared Owl is by no means uncommon in Ame- 
rica, and it is also found in the Indian divi- 
sion of the world, for we have received speci- 
mens in every way identical from China. The 
Tawny Owl, so far as we know, is restricted in 
its range to Europe, but has its representative, 
closely allied in habits, in the Barred Owl of 
North America. The Snowy Owl has the regions 
of the north for its strongholds, Northern Eu- 
rope, and America, reaching nearly to the polar 
latitudes, while it appears also to have been met 
with, but more sparingly, on the colder frontiers 
of the Asiatic continent; in Great Britain, it is 
very rare. The small species of Owls, or Noctuce , 
may also be accounted only as visiters having 
reached the limit of migration, than as really be- 
longing to the natural fauna of our islands ; and 
so much confusion yet exists in the characters 
under which they have been described, that it is 
scarcely possible to correctly assign the boundaries 
of their range. 
Idle systematic arrangement of the owls is a 
task of great difficulty, both from the general 
scarcity of facts which are known relating to the 
Temminck, Manual d’Omithologie. 
