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Nestling. When freshly hatched the young bird is sparsely covered with coarse yellowish-white down, the 
abdomen being hare. 
Varieties. Examples differ from each other in the minute details of their colouring. The two specimens in the 
Canterbury Museum have less white about the face ; the soft feathers forming the facial disk are tawny 
white, with black shaft-lines and liair-like filaments ; and along the exterior edge of the disk there is a 
narrow crescent of pure white, each feather marked with a narrow brownish streak down the centre. In 
one of these examples the lengthened spots or fusiform markings on the upper surface are less distinct, while 
in the other they are wholly wanting ; but in the latter the fulvous-white bars on the primaries are very 
conspicuous, and add much to the beauty of the plumage. In this specimen the feathers of the upper 
surface are blackish brown, with a broad tawny margin, those forming the mantle, scapulars, and upper 
wing-coverts having, on each web, a broad oblique oar of fulvous white. A specimen more lately received 
at the Canterbury Museum, and forwarded to Europe, and another in my own collection are sufficiently 
white about the face to justify the specific name bestowed by Mr. G. R. Gray. In ordinary examples, how- 
ever, this is quite a subordinate feature. One of those figured in Mr. Dawson Rowley's f Ornithological 
Miscellany 3 has an entirely white face; the other exhibits a strong wash of rufous. The North -Island bird 
(in the Colonial Museum) is several shades darker than those from the South Island, the whole of the plumage 
being deeply stained with ferruginous. The feathers at the base of the upper mandible, and those immedi- 
ately above the eyes, are white, with black shaft-lines; but the facial disk is washed with fulvous. There is 
an entire absence of the white markings on the upper surface ; underparts rich tawny fulvous, with a dark 
brown stripe down the centre of each feather ; tail dark brown, crossed by five broad V-shaped bands of 
tawny fulvous. 
A specimen obtained from the Albury Rocks is inclined to albinism, there being a number of white 
feathers on the head, shoulders, and mantle, giving the bird a very pretty appearance. 
This bird was originally described by Mr. G. R. Gray, in the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ 
under the name of Athene albifacies ; and Dr. Kaup afterwards made it the type of his genus 
Sceloglaux, of which it still remains the sole representative. Mr. Gould, in treating of this singular 
form, has already pointed out that its prominent bill, swollen nostrils, and small head are characters 
as much Accipitrine as Strigine, and that its short and feeble wings indicate that its powers of flight 
are limited, while its lengthened tarsi and shortened toes would appear to have been given to afford 
it a compensating increase of progression over the ground ; and it does, at first sight, appear strange 
that a bird specially formed by nature for preying on small quadrupeds should exist in a country 
which does not possess any. It must be remembered, however, that when the Laughing-Owl was 
moie plentiful than it now is, New Zealand was inhabited or, rather, overrun by a species of frugi- 
vorous lat, which is now almost, if not quite, extinct. The kiore maori, which has been exterminated 
and replaced by the intioduced Norway rat ( J\lus decumanus ), formerly abounded to such an extent 
in the wooded parts of the country that it constituted the principal animal food of the Maori tribes 
of that period. It was a ground-feeder, subsisting almost entirely on the fallen mast of the tawa, 
hinau, towai, and other forest-trees ; and it would therefore fall an easy prey to the Sceloglaux. The 
fact that the extinction of the native rat has been followed by the almost total disappearance of this 
singular bird appears to warrant the conclusion that the one constituted the principal support of the 
other *. Be that as it may, the Laughing-Owl, as it has been termed, in allusion to its cry, is at the 
* On this point Mr. Smith writes to the ‘ Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. pp. 86, 87 : — 
“The suggestion of Dr. Buller that the kiore maori (native rat), before its extermination, may have constituted the principal 
food of this Owl, is an important one ; and my researches among the rooks at Albury, and experiments with the living birds in 
captivity, are greatly in support of this. In several of the crevices where I captured them, I found an ancient conglomerate of 
exuvise ranging from three to twelve inches thick. From the under surface, and through the mass to nearly the upper surface, 
this conglomerate is thickly studded with Owl’s castings, composed entirely of light brown hair (which is unquestionably that 
of the kiore maori) and small bones. The castings more recently deposited among the rocks are composed of elytra and legs of 
beetles.” 
