SYKNIUM INDRANI. 
157 
Obs. The Brown Wood-Owl, which has generally been associated with the species described by Col. Sykes from 
Southern India as Syrnium indranee , has of late been separated by Mr. Hume as S. ochrogenys, the grounds for so 
doing being that it was considered by him to have a more ochraceous disk than the Indian bird, and likewise to have 
that part not cross-rayed with dark lines. Sykes’s type is not forthcoming now, nor are there any Southem- 
Indian birds in English collections, as far as I have been able to discern, from which it can be gathered what the 
species really is like. It is, of course, distinct from the Nepal bird (S. newarense), notwithstanding that^ some of 
the latter species are quite as small as Sykes’s specimen was. His description, which applies well to Ceylonese 
examples, is in part as follows : — “ Abdomine subrufo, brunneo graciliter fasciato ; regione circumoculari nigra , 
disco rufo, brunneo marginato.” With regard to the second point, concerning which it may be remarked that 
there is no evidence to show that it did not exist in the Indian bird, it will be seen that hill Ceylonese example^ 
have the face more or less cross-marked with brown rays, though low-country birds have not as a rule. On the 
whole, therefore, in the absence of specimens from the districts where Sykes and Jerdon got them, it will be well 
to retain the Ceylon bird under its old title, until evidence is forthcoming to separate the Indian species, parti- 
cularly as Mr. Hume lately writes me that he now considers the Njlgherry and Ceylonese species to be one and 
the same. In order to further the existing information concerning this interesting bird, and more especially for 
the benefit of my Ceylon readers, wbo are more or less interested in the so-called Devil-bird, it seems expedient 
to give a figure of the species, which I have accordingly done*. 
Distribution. — The Brown Wood-Owl is distributed over the whole of Ceylon, inhabiting the low-country 
jungles of both the north and the south of the island, as well as the forests of the hill-zone up to the altitude 
of the Nuwara-E Iliya plateau. In the Kandyan Province it is pretty generally found throughout all the 
coffee-districts, and is not at all uncommon in the neighbourhood of Kandy. In the upper ranges I have met 
with it at Kandapolla, and in the British Museum there are specimens from Nuwara Elliya. In the western 
parts of the low country it is a bird of local distribution, but in the wild jungles of the north and east I imagine 
it is everywhere to be found. I have myself met with it close to Trincomalie, and others have procured it in 
various parts of the Vanni. In the Colombo district it has been shot as near to Colombo as Kaesbawa, and in 
the scattered jungles, commencing about 20 miles inland and extending more or less to the base of the hills, 
it is not unfrequent. More favourable to its nature are, however, the continued woods and forests clothing 
the country, further south, between the Kaluganga and Dondra Head, and there it is tolerably common 
Between Kalatura and Agalawatta, in a comparatively maritime part of the country, I have heard several of 
these Owls on a single evening hooting within a short distance of each other. 
Jerdon remarks that this species is found throughout Southern India, in Ceylon, and the Malayan 
Peninsula. He makes mention of it as follows “ It frequents the forest only, and is most common at a 
considerable elevation. Col. Sykes found it in the dense woods of the Ghats. I procured it first on the 
Nilghiris, and afterwards along the Western Ghats in the Wynaad and Coorg. It has also been sent from 
Goonsoor.” It does not appear to have been found north of the Deccan, and does not inhabit either Burmali 
or Tenasserim ; with regard to the Malayan Peninsula it has been procured in that region by Dr. Maingay, 
Lord Tweeddale being in possession of a skin sent home by that gentleman. On the authority of the late 
Mr. Swinhoeit has also been assigned to the island of Formosa; the specimen was described in f The Ibis/ 
1863, p. 218, under the name of Bubo caligatus, and was supposed by Mr. Gurney to belong perhaps to this 
species ; but it was afterwards found to be Syrnium newarense , and is described as such in Swinhoe s Catalogue 
of the Birds of China/’ P. Z. S. 1871, p. 344. 
Habits. — This tine Owl, which has received the ill-omened name of Devil-bird, on account of the dire 
noises which the natives of the island have always ascribed to it, frequents shady forest-groves, woods of 
moderate extent, and portions of heavy jungle, near clearings and open places. I have met with it half a dozen 
times without being able to procure it, so sharp-sighted is it by day; it was, on several occasions, being most 
thoroughly mobbed by the Jungle-Drongos ( Buchanga longicaudata ) in company with a host of Bulbuls, who 
were pursuing it from tree to tree with a chattering incessant enough to bewilder a wiser bird than even an 
Owl ! On another occasion I witnessed its pei’secution, in a forest near Ambepussa, by two or three pairs of 
* My Plate was drawn some months prior to working out my article, and the bird was styled by Mr. Hume’s name 
ochrogenys , which I have now had altered. 
