THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
the Owls (Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lend.) 1837, p. 99) : “ Four species of this genus 
(Athene) are now on the table, the two largest of which are new to science. 
For the largest I would propose the name of Athene strenua, and for the other 
that of A. fortis. The third has been characterized by Messrs. Vigors and 
Horsfield as the Noctua Boobook, and the Noctua maculata of these gentlemen 
seems to be identical with it. For the fourth and last species of the genus, 
which is from Van Diemen’s Land, I propose the name of leuco'psis, from the 
white colouring of its face. The species of the genus Strix, which I have called 
delicatus, together with my Strix cyclo'ps and Strix castanops and the Strix 
'personata of Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield, may be said to be closely allied 
but distinct species.” 
This extract appears to have been overlooked until I made note of it in the 
Austral Avian Record, Vol. I., p. 128, Dec. 24, 1912. Gould never referred to 
his name leucopsis again, and I suggested that Athene leucopsis might be Strix 
Cyclops, but re-reading the quotation above showed this to be impossible. The 
only Athene known from Tasmania is clelandi, so the leucopsis appears 
quite indeterminable, and I placed it in Appendix B in my List of the 
Birds of Australia in 1913. 
Gould maintained the two species castanops and cy clops in the “ Birds 
of Australia,” but for the latter accepted Vigors’ name personata. In the 
Handbook, 1865, he still retained two distinct species, the name cyclops being, 
however, now rejected in favour of novoehollandioe, in deference to the Law of 
Priority of which Gould was a strict observer, and castanops. Sharpe, Ramsay 
and North, however, more or less accepted the intergradation of these two, 
and while generally accepting castanops, just as often noted that it was a 
subspecies only. 
In 1898 North seems to have been more or less puzzled how to treat them, 
as, cataloguing them as distinct species under novoehollandice, he describes 
two varieties, a light and a dark one, and then writes of the latter : “ The 
facial disc is often as deeply tinted with rich dark orange-buff as that variety 
known as Strix castanops from Tasmania.” 
In 1912, in the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1, Vol. III., he does not 
include Strix castanops, and his remarks are not conclusive ; these I have 
quoted in their proper place. 
On account of the variation apparent, no one attempted the determination 
of subspecies. North, Ramsay, etc., admitting two species or subspecies, 
Strix novcehollandice and Strix castanops. As these writers were not certain 
of the distribution of the subspecies, but accepted castanops as occurring 
elsewhere than in Tasmania, a reconsideration, under geographical values, 
was necessary. 
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