98 
Birds of Celebes: Asionidae. 
opinion that the locality was erroneously indicated; Dr. Hartlaiib, in his 
“Vogeln Madagaskars” 1877, says there can be no question as to the correct- 
ness of the locality; Mr. Grandidier, however, takes an opposite view and 
considers it certainly wrong (Ois. Madag. 1879, I, 126, note). Although we 
incline to the latter opinion, it need, nevertheless, create no great surprise that 
a lost straggler, migrating southwards from the Himalayas in winter during the 
N. E. monsoon, should he aided by it across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar; 
just as individuals of migrant North American birds occasionally lose their way 
and succeed in reaching the coast of England. 
There remains the dark form of Dr. Sharpe, which, following Schlegel 
(dl) and Prof. W. Blasius (il), we have split into two differing notably in 
the formula of the primaries (see supra), a larger Eastern or Japano-Chinese 
race and a smaller Western or Indian one. Whether these divisions will prove 
sufficient, or not, can only be ascertained by means of prolonged investigation 
and a much more complete series of specimens and facts than the Dresden 
Museum and the various ornithological periodicals and works up to the present 
afford; the Eastern race, N. s. japonica, may, however, be shown on good grounds 
to be migratory ; while the 'W estern one may be a migratory , or a stationary 
bird, or the number of stationary birds, slightly differing from all others (f. i. 
N. borneensis [Bp.] Sharpe, Ibis 1889, 80), are perhaps increased at a certain 
season of the year by migratory ones. The correct answer to these difficulties 
is not likely to inliuence Celebes, which is visited by N. s. japonica, judging by 
the length of the wing; but it is to be hoped that some careful ornithologist 
will see fit to take the matter in hand. 
The remarkable denticulate toes of this species and its claws as sharp as 
pins are suggestive of a class of food prey-ed upon that is difficult to hold. 
Colonel I-egge says that it feeds almost exclusively on beetles, moths and 
grasshoppers. It captures insects on the wing (B. Ceylon, 148). The stomach 
of a specimen killed in Borneo by Mr. Everett was “distended with beetles, 
chiefly Buprestidae”, another had swallowed a small gecko-lizard (h 2). The 
Drs. Sarasin found in the stomach of one killed in N. Celebes 9 recognisable 
mole-crickets, several cockroaches. TYith the disappearance of this food at the 
approach of winter in A moor I.and, China and Japan, the Owls in these regions 
must of necessity migrate southwards; and, judging from analogies in other parts 
of the world, it is probable that the birds from the Amoor, in which Prof. 
W. Blasius and Mr. Taczanowski point out some differences (i 1, g 3), do not 
proceed so far south as the more southern ones of China and Japan. In Japan 
it has not yet been recorded with certainty from the northernmost island at all, 
but Seebohm states that it is “not uncommon in summer” near Yokohama 
and Nagasaki. It is just at this season that it appears to be entirely absent in 
the East Indian Archipelago , where, with the exception of the Philippines, we 
have only been able to find a single specimen dated between the end of April 
and the end of September. On the other hand all the dates recorded of sped- 
