WINKING OWL. 
primary-coverts uniform brown rather darker than the back ; primary- and secondary- 
quills earth-brown like the back with pale smoke-brown or white cross-bars, or large 
ovate spots chiefly on the inner webs, the innermost secondaries marked with white 
on both webs ; tail earth-brown like the back, barred with pale smoke-brown, 
becoming dull white on the inner portion of the inner webs and at the tips ; base 
of fore-head, space surrounding the eye, cheeks and throat white with black hair- 
hke tips fco the feathers ; under-surface, including the under wing-coverts and under 
tail-coverts tawny-brown, the feathers edged with white, rather broadly on the 
abdomen and much more so on the under tail-coverts ; the margins to the under 
wing-coverts buff ; greater series of under wing-coverts, quill-hning and lower 
aspect of tail pale brown barred with white. Bill black and horn ; cere yellowish- 
grey ; eyes yellow ; feet yellow. Total length 410 mm. ; culmen 20, wing 281, 
tail 156, tarsus 41. Figured. Collected at Port Keats, Northern Territory, in 
January, 1907, and is the type of Hieracoglaux connivens s'uboccidentalis (Mathews). 
Adult male. Similar to the adult female. 
Nestling covered with white down. 
Immature take on the adult plumage almost at once. 
Nest. A hole in a tree or in a rabbit-burrow. 
Eggs. Clutch, two or three ; white and roundish, 45 to 48 mm. by 40 to 42. 
Breeding-season. August, September, October. 
When Latham examined the drawings made by Watling of New Holland 
birds, he saw one of a strange facies with a note by the artist : “ This Bird 
has a wonderfuU power of contracting and dilating the iris and pupil.” 
Latham determined this to be a species of Falco, and gave the specific name 
of connivens to it. 
Latham’s fuU description of the drawing reads {Gen. Synops., Suppl. II., 
p. 53, 1801): “Winking E(alcon). Size of the Ringtail; length eighteen 
or nineteen inches ; bill pale, with a black point ; irides yellow ; the general 
colour of the plumage is a deep chocolate-brown, spotted with rusty-white 
on the lower part of the neck behind, and on the axillaries of the wings ; 
the quills are obliquely, and the tail-feathers transversely barred with the 
same ; the under-parts, as far as the breast, dirty yellowish-white, with short 
dusky streaks ; legs covered to the toes with pale ash-coloured feathers.^ 
“ Inhabits New Holland, but no history annexed, further than that it 
has a wonderful faculty of contracting and dilating the iris, and that the 
native name is Goora-a-gang.^'' 
As Sharpe {Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Brit. Mus., Vol. II., p. 110, 1906) noted, 
Watling wrote the native name “ Goo-ree-a-gang.” 
It was, of course, certain that the inaccurate generic location would be 
the cause of the re-naming of the bird, so that when Gould received this Owl 
from New South Wales he called it Athene (?) fortis. It had, however, been 
previously named by Lesson Noctua frontata, but this name was not recog- 
nised as applicable for many years, until Pucheran re-examined the types 
of Lesson’s species. 
VOL. V. 
337 
