300 
SCOPS-EAKED OWL. 
breed in “ Castle Edendene,’’ near Stockton-on- 
Tees.* 
Its habits from observation we cannot detail ; 
from all accounts it seems most abundant, and has 
heen most observed in Italy. Spalanzani is among 
the first who detailed its habits, and gives its 
favourite residence as lower wooded regions. Mr 
W. Spence, who has noticed it more lately, and in 
a notice in Loudon’s Magazine, observes that one 
established itself in the garden belonging to his 
house at Florence, where it constantly uttered its 
cry from night -fall to mid-night, at intervals be- 
tween each other as regular as the ticking of a 
pendulum.! 
It is impossible to convey by words an idea 
of the beautiful penciling on the plumage of this 
little species. It is a delicate blending of smoke 
gray, chestnut, and yellowish brown, streaked, 
barred, and speckled with black. On the upper 
parts the dark markings run along the shaft diva- 
ricating into ragged bars ; on the breast and belly 
they are broad streaks along the shafts, the feathers 
otherwise mottled with zigzag bars of the same 
colour ; the egrets are composed of several feathers 
with dark centres ; the ruff is yellowish white at 
the base, becoming ochraceous and tipped with 
black ; the disk surrounding the eyes, and com- 
* Yarrell’s Br. Birds. 
f Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist. v. p. 654. 
